Fundamentalism: Academic and Moslem

Dear Friends:

I write to you again because I fear that any prospects of 
co-existence between the Moslem and the Judeo-Christian worlds 
may be in jeopardy simply because we cannot enter each other’s 
frame of mind-- indeed, frame of time. I therefore would like, 
if I may, to take this opportunity to put before you thoughts 
and revisions of my thoughts prompted by your very kind efforts 
to make me rethink my thinking.

President Bush speaks of a Grand Coalition opposed to terrorism. 
But what is the point the Moslem and Western members of that 
coalition have in common when they speak of "terrorism"?

TERROR AS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

One could well understand "terrorism" an  *effect* of sudden 
unexpected violent action. Thus, terrorism would be defined 
by the persistent physiological state of stress such an event
imposes, not on its victims (who physiologically are rendered 
defunked or nearly so) but on those who survive it and those 
that are made aware of it. Thus, it could be argued, CNN is a 
terrorist organization because it inflicts on those of us far 
from a violent event the same sense of terror as those who 
witnesses the violent event by replaying it for us, OVER AND 
OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER...and over again on our TV 
sets. Without CNN, one might say, most of the nation and most 
of the world would never have been victims of terrorism (I 
say CNN but I mean the news media as a whole). 

So simply knowing, not only that an event happened to some 
unknown strangers, but also that it could happen to us as 
well, making us feel frightfully vulnerable, terrorizes us. 
I recall a brilliant polisci prof at UC Berkeley who in his 
course on terrorism-- he was dealing with communist state 
terror against the citizens instead of the presently 
confronted kind-- said that terror was like the California 
State Police wanting people not to speed on the Bay Bridge 
going to San Francisco. Well, they couldn't follow every 
car and they couldn't stop every car that was speeding. So 
they would stop cars in such a random way that one never 
knew if he would be stopped, so everyone would be careful 
not to speed. But he readily admitted the flaw in his 
example, in that, (a) the victims of terror never really 
knew why they were targeted and (b) those that were not 
targeted should know that those who were targeted fell 
victim to a frightful state. Still, the essence of terrorism 
has always been the advertising of a cause through fear that 
the terror committed on its behalf could recur, any time, 
any place; for without it being common knowledge to have 
happened, to recur and to be unpredictable, there would be 
no terror. All these attributes are indicated for the 
terrorists by the press to a very wide audience. Terrorism 
indeed is  a media attention seeking devise, as pointed out 
by Michael Howard in an article in the LONDON TIMES, recently. 
Terror not only scares you but it focuses you and makes you 
acquiescently receptive to the message passed on to you in 
that frightened state, for the terrorists, by the media. The 
media—as CNN often has done—becomes the mouthpiece for the 
terrorists. 

In their efforts to “scoop” each other, news services find 
themselves competing as the best platform from which the 
terrorists can present their message.  People, thus 
vicariously terrorized through the media, find themselves 
grateful to the terrorists for sparing them when nothing
happens. They thus become strangely receptive captives 
through the media)to the terrorist message, at the very 
least attentive. Just as the Soviet media made Stalin 
both feared and loved, CNN et al are making bin Laden a
legitimate contender for the people’s sympathy. That the 
process works was made clear by the millions hysterically 
sobbing when Stalin died. Just Russians were made to think 
that there is no life after Stalin, CNN and company are 
making bin Laden and Co. a familiar part of our lives with 
their never ending “news” and interviews. So long as he has 
our attention, one can expect that he will hurt us again in 
order to keep it. Terror is effective only so long as the 
terrorist is always on the target people’s minds.   

TERRORISM SEEN AS A MEANS

Besides a condition of fear for those AROUND its victims, 
terrorism is also a MEANS to the weak who otherwise could not 
hope to command attention or to bend the will of oppressors. 
For a state strength comes from order. State terror at its mildest 
extreme is police surveillance. Beyond that, moving towards the 
other extreme, an example is the terror of colonial authority on 
the inferior "aborigines" or "natives" subjugated by the superior 
"civilized" society dominating them. It is amusing to think of the 
"pieds moirés," most of whom were not French or the lowest class 
of Frenchmen in Indochina, for example, bringing "la mission 
civilizatrice" of La Metropole to Algerians, Moroccans, Lebanese, 
Tunesians and Syrians. In contrast, the British hid their feeling 
of racial superiority and manipulated the local leaders in a divide 
and conquer scheme. But when the "natives" got restless, colonial 
power asserted its strength through fire power, with little regard 
for loss of life.

It was through escalating exploitation of weak moments on the 
part of the recognized "superior" occupying European power 
that the Moslems were able to make the colonial venture not 
worth the cost to the mother country whose sole colonial goal 
was economic. Thus, the progeny of those too weak to resist 
white power refined terrorism against colonial authority to 
the point that the white power no longer considered colonialism 
a manageable venture. That is no small task for people that 
through three generations had drummed into their heads: "We
[Europeans] are here to civilize you savages." While the 
colonialists claimed to have simply abandoned their colonies 
because the venture was no longer worth the effort, the natives 
considered the departure of the colonial powers victory in a holy 
struggle whose success was paid for in blood and pain. It was, 
in other words, the means to victory for the righteous weak 
against the evil powerful. That victory was seen as a mark of 
the righteousness of one's cause in the eyes of God and a sign 
of the superiority of the once defeated order. How can one, therefore,
not understand the exalted status given to terrorism as the means by 
which the weak free themselves from the strong? How can one expect 
nations that owe their seemingly impossible independence to terrorism 
to denounce it?

TERRORISM SEEN AS AN END

To Pres. Bush--- probably reflecting the thinking of most 
Americans-- terrorism is a perverted end onto itself. It cannot 
be seen as a means because no means would justify, in American 
eyes, such heinous deeds. Thus, for example, everyone knows what 
McVey did, but few know why he felt compelled to do it. Yet, most
 Americans were horrified by the Ruby Ridge and Waico incidents 
that so horrified McVey as to drive him to bomb a federal building;
 no one associates his deed with his outrage. To us, terror is the 
senseless taking of innocent lives and nothing could justify that. 
Yet, we deem "collateral damage" the Afghani women and children 
killed by our bombs really aimed at Taliban forces without these 
deaths de-legitimatising the reason for our bombing. Yet, we consider 
the events of Sept 11th senseless killing of innocents. None of us, 
me included, would stop to ask: what's their point? To us it was 
all depraved vicious massacre of innocents. That bin Laden did that
 in outrage for our desecration of “holy land” with our global 
economy is given to consideration.

But what if no one had been in the buildings and they were somehow 
demolished without hurting anyone? Would we then have accepted their
destruction on grounds that our "consumerist culture" has desecrated
the Moslem's holy grounds? Would we contemplate the spiritual evil" 
inflicted on a vulnerable peoples by our corporate globalist avarice?
Would we have accepted the idea that this is not a Judeo-Christian vs.
Moslem religious war but a legitimate retaliation for mercantile 
invasion by powerful corporations seeking more more business at the 
expense of Moslem sanctity? Would we have insisted that free trade 
everywhere and anywhere is our right?

DO WE KNOW WHAT OUR GLOBAL ECONOMY IS DOING?


We have engorged ourselves in Middle Eastern oil. Today alone I saw four
 commercials for gas-guzzling SUVs in the one hour that I watched CNN. 
We sent out a lot of petro-dollars to buy gas and we wanted them flowing 
back to us somehow. So, through investment and consumption, we squeezed 
an Arab or Iranian here, another there, until, through their purchase 
of our goods, the petro-dollar flow was totally acceptable to us. We 
advocated "globalism,” claiming that our corporate global economy,  
would bring the "standard of living" of the so-called "Third World" to 
the level of ours. Did we ever consider that if we, 6% of the world's population, need to consume 56% of the world's resources to achieve our
standard of living, for 100% of mankind to achieve our standard of 

living may be a mathematical impossibility? Did we, therefore, proceed 
to develop an alternate "development scheme" providing a declining scale 
of "standard of living" from absurdly luxuriant for a very few at the top
to abject poverty for most at the bottom—with enough moderately well off
so that the very, very rich could impose our "corporate presence" on the 
very, very poor?

I will not offer answers. I will only suggest that if we try to think 
beyond Sept 11th and beyond binLaden and the Taliban, we must avoid 
ending our contemplation at the level of terrorism as an evil end— evil
for evil’s sake. To those who used terror to get British, French, 
Spanish and Portuguese oppression off their beloved and sacred lands
and faiths, it is not a war between religions, it is a war of God's 
will against foreign evil. And terror is used because terror works, 
not because it is evil. If we can't change the minds of millions of 
Moslems about our ends in the Middle East, we can't escape the next 
blow. It would seem, if terror is their end, that we must destroy 
them all so that the terror stops. But, perhaps there is a wiser 
middle way, where we might spare ALL further bloodshed. Perhaps 
if we recognized the fact that terror is their means, not their 
end, we might be able to come to terms with them as we deter them
 with the very power we would not want to use.  I don't know the 
answers to my questions, but I can’t stop thinking about these 
questions either as we bomb and bomb and bomb and bomb…; I'm only 
throwing these thoughts to you for discussion. Despite my bitter 
anger-- and yours-- towards those cells of suicide-murdering 
psychotics hiding out amongst us I’m trying to see the other side.
 Please help me. Please join me in dialogue with those who see 
things from a different angle. Lets not be so blind in our rage 
that we blur the differences between us and them that Pres. Bush
 so aptly enumerated.

One of the responses I got was from my son. Lloyd Gardner of Rutgers 
introduced him to international affairs and the Cold War. I append 
his note to me as, among other things, testament to the impact of 
pedagogic excellence. I always challenged Gardner's views. Yet, 
now, a student of his for only one undergraduate semester, my son 
has made Gardner's ( and W. Appleman William's) concern with our 
post-WWII corporate cultural imperialism worth thinking about. 
That's "higher" education at its highest—a former student, now a 
busy lawyer, stops to consider the foreboding words of one of his 
professors from so long ago. I beg you all to please transmit your 
thoughts on this issue back to me. Thank you all in advance.


Daniel E. Teodoru 

Below is my son’s response to me: 

--- DanielT  wrotte:
I have read your e-mail, and remarkably enough, I
find myself agreeing with
most of what you have to say on this issue.  First,
your point regarding
mutually assured destruction is well received. 
Invariably, it is a
fundamental precept of our nation's government, as
any other's, that the
core essential purpose of that establishment, above
all, when push comes to
shove, is the protection of the sanctity of its
borders and the safety of
its inhabitants.  From a realist viewpoint, the
promise of such vehement
national protection, by means as frightful as
nuclear weapons if necessary,
IS, I believe, a legitimate if not practical or
humanitarian act of self
defense.  The matriculation of that promise into
action may also be
justified, depending on the circumstances, in an
effort to not just
eradicate the aggressors who have been pinpointed
but also to send an honest
message plainly portraying the horrible resolve this
nation can and will
resort to when prevoked.  We, of course, are the
only nation that dared to
take such an awful step.      

However, there are some significant pratfalls in
reaching such an honest and
certain, albeit hostile, state of equilibrium with
the Mullahs.  Moreover,
if this state of equilibrium does not have mutual
respect to Muslim
solutions for the Muslim world as an actual goal,
but simply props up more
"regimes" as a means designed to achieve an end
similar to the resolution of
the cold war, the true kindling for the hatred of
America which has
culminated in the September 11th attacks may never
be extinguished or even
controlled.  Accordingly, we, as Americans, may
never attain a cure for our
disease, A SENSE OF TERROR, as you so aptly phrased
it.  Instead, as is the
great malaise of western medicine, we will continue
to focus on diagnostic
rather than preventative treatment, and therefore
never be assured that any
step we take will "do not harm".

I would suggest that this notion of doing no harm,
in a more
colloquial sense, is at the core of the angst of
this country's identity,
and an underrooting complication in our ability to
take any effective action
in response to September 11th.  Simply stated, we do
not want to know, or
be, who we perhaps truly are.  There is a classic
legal cannon called the
"clean hands doctrine", which establishes that if
one seeks to come to a
court of law or equity seeking relief or justice,
one must have "clean
hands", and not be in violation of legal or
equitable principals themselves.
This concept still represents the dichotomy in the
American sense of
national self.      
 
We as Americans want to assume the identity as
benevolent and
peaceful people, while still maintaining our ability
to consume all the
world has to offer at a grossly disproportionate
rate, and proceeding with
life ambivalent or even unaware of the externalities
that our actions have
outside, and often even within, our borders. Yes, we
have an open society in
many respects, but it is also an overly paternal,
often closed society, that
never allows us to pair the priorities of our
society with the consequences
of those choices, and thereby determine if those
priorities are indeed
appropriate.  Instead, it is encompassed by that
overreaching goal to
preserve "the American way of life", for whatever
that vagary actually
connotes.
 
The reality of our actions to preserve the status
quo (at least for
a select wealthy few that contribute heartily to
certain Texans' campaigns)
are infrequently discussed.  Yes, we have played a
major role in the Israel
- Palestine conflict, arming Israel, allowing the
indefinite displacement of
a Palestinian state, etc.  Perhaps, as you noted, we
have legitimate grounds
for these actions, based in our Judeo-Christian
background, though this is
quite a slice of hypocricy given the treatment of
Jews by Christians over
the past century and beyond.  Yes, we have imposed
severe sanctions on Iraq,
as an aggressive and totalitarian regime (which, by
the way, we helped
empower), at a great cost to the same civilians that
we incited to oppose
Saddam in the Gulf War, and then abandoned once
Kuwait's oil reserves were
safe (diagonal oil drilling aside).  At the same
time, we support equally if
not more repressive regimes in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, and many other
middle eastern nations because it preserves a vital
resource for our way of
life (translate - oil for 8 cylinder SUV's).  In
fact, 50 years ago, when
the Shah of Iran, the US, UK and France divvied up
practically all of Iran's
oil wealth, while people starved in the streets, we
played a massive role in
overturning a revolutionary regime and returned the
Shah to power.  A
quarter of a century later, when Khomeini led a
"holy insurgence", we
managed to act shocked by the intensity of the wrath
displayed.  Were we
justified in these actions??  Perhaps, depending on
the priorities you
consign to.   
 
The current "campaign" in Afghanistan further
underscores this tendency. I
will not go into the propriety of our actions at
this time.  Instead, I
would point out the conflict in what we do and how
we envision ourselves.
In the name of the protection of our civilians from
terror, we are now
(several incidents have been acknowledged by the
west) taking the lives of
Afghan civilians.  We can not even call such deaths
errors or unfortunate
products of war - rather, we euphemize them as
"collateral damage".
Moreover, in an effort to make our public feel
"better" about the actions we
are taking, we are dropping off RME rations from six
miles in the air, with
use instructions in English, to many of those same
civilians.  Further, this
bombing campaign, as with all our others in the
past, has, I believe, been
prolonged (does the Taliban really represent that
much of an aerial and
logistic threat??) in order to avoid if possible the
only solution to attain
our apparent mission, an actual  ground war, which
may have the unpalatable
result of the loss of more American lives.  We
clearly do not want this
result, yet we do want our easy revenge, so the
result is a bombing campaign
which does little to cure our disease, only hide the
pain while it
mestacicizes.           

As an interesting aside, in Oregon and
Washington,
new clear cuts must leave a 50 foot strip of trees
along the highway
corridor, to preserve the aesthetics of the once
forested areas - this angst
is certainly not limited to foreign affairs.
 
This problem has, of course, been exacerbated by
the Bush
administration in the past month.  He has 
decided to gloss over the notion of not just why
this happened but also how
this happened, instead opting to fall back on the
feel good radio pop
psychology analysis that we are good and love
freedom and they simply hate
us for that.  This message is somewhat patronizing
even if proffered to a
young child when the stakes are so high and the
disease so great, as they
are in the current matter.  He reverts to the
caricature of an old west law
man (amusing, given his family's WASP Connecticut
country club background),
rather than allowing this nation to face the breadth
and complexity of the
issue we have taken on and the ramifications of our
approach to this all. 
 
Of course, I would be quick to consign much of these
actions to demands of
all the patrician interests that characterize the
Republican Party, and the
need to preserve the status quo, which propagates
the interests of the
wealthy and corporate over the needs and interests
of the masses.  However,
no party, politician, or citizen of this Country is
absolved from the
responsibility to come to terms with our
Machievellian selves, ask whether
or not we support the priorities we have set and are
willing to assume the
consequences for that decision.   
 
Therefore, I would not coin you as "nuke em Dan",
but rather would
characterize your suggestion as one which is honest
and to a large degree
appreciates the reality of what our country is, and
the measures we will
take to assert our dominance, though I believe we
have a divergence of
opinion as to what this Country should be.  However,
I agree that firm
inaction may be a much better solution to the action
we currently take.
There is no correct answer here.  Nonetheless, some
alternative approach,
where we utilized our international consensus to
pointedly enter Afghanistan
to remove Bin Laden and Al Quetta without playing
into the stereotype of
harming civilian Muslims through the use of our
western technology, would
also be more effective.  I would suggest that the
resolve of many Mullahs,
and the characterization of America OUTSIDE the US,
particularly in the
Muslim world, as arrogant, heartless, imperialist,
etc., has only been
fortified by news of civilian deaths as we bomb from
the sky.  Therefore, we
again may well be allowing the disease to grow while
we treat it temporarily
with aspirin.     
 
On a final note, as for your suggestion that we
reach a MAD
equilibrium as a means to eventually overcome the
Mullahs in mush the same
way as Communism has a fundamental flaw.  Assuming,
arguendo, that the
Marshall Plan was at the core of Communism's demise,
a key distinction here
is the religious aspect of the Mullah's, and the
promise, not just of power,
equality, or outright proletariat revenge, as with
the Communist uprisings,
but of eternal salvation under God.  Muhammed's
greatness in the Muslim
faith was not just for his preachings, but for his
unification of the Muslim
people and achievement of peace through victory in
battle.  He reunited the
"Nation of Islam", from tiny little states and
tribes as exist today, in the
war against Meccha.  If we stay out of this quagmire
in a state of
equilibrium, short of supporting Israel's reasonable
needs for sovereignty
and security (but not aggression themselves), I
agree that the force of the
Mullah's message may wane over time.  But if we
"meddle", as we did the cold
war, we face not just political ideology, but
religious fervor, which is
something that American dollars may not overwhelm.  
         
 
Again, this all comes to oil, and those little
enviro issues you
have disregarded may come to roost.  Alternative
energy technology is there.
If we make the transition, we begin to obviate our
own need to be immersed
in the Muslim world.  However, the decision makers
on this mess, oil
millionaires, were crafting a plan before this
happened to pull us further
into the oil quagmire.  And the only true statesman
and diplomat among the
bunch, Mr. Powell, has been relegated to a back seat
position because,
though conservative, his approach to the world
represents practicality
rather than big business.

A final note -
 
If this escalates, what are the chances that George
P. Bush, son of Jeb,
will sign up for the air national guard, given the
fact that now, unlike
Vietnam, national defense may actually play a role
here??  Perhaps he'll get
a gig protecting Guam?!?     
 
 
 Danny (Son)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: Daniel E. Teodoru [SMTP:deteodoru@yahoo.com]
 Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 2:54 AM
 To: Daniel Teodoru
 Subject: "Nuke 'em Dan" vs. binLaden
 
 Dear Friends,
 
 I write to you again out of concern that I might be
 misread as "nuke 'em Dan." While I indeed sought to
 bring us all to consider our REAL power, our
 nuclear
 power, as a factor in the equasion, delivered by
 our
 irresistable ICBMs, it was in the full expectation
 that the credible threat that we present to end our
 vulnerability to destruction by suicidal terror
 would
 bring the terror to an end.
 
 Medicine asks all physicians before acting to ask
 themselves: am I improving the situation with my
 intervention or might I be doing harm? As a medical
 student one gets the illusion that medicine is a
 great
 battle between doctor and disease. But the practice
 of
 medicine puts before the physician another
 dimension:
 the limitless suffering that is inflicted on man by
 disease. Most of the time, pathology is beyond our
 control; paliative treatment of suffering is all we
 can do. Once that is appreciated, one from then on
 forward invariable asks if his/her intervention
 will
 ameliorate or enhance that botomless suffering.
 Hence,
 the dictum: above all do no harm. This dictum puts
 the
 physician before a most vexing dilema, as often the
 prolongation of life is a tradeoff with enhancement
 of
 suffering. To avoid this disabling dilema,
 physicians
 follow standard process algorithms and leave the
 rest
 to the patient's will.
 
 President Bush would have been well served to
 consider
 that dilema. As the voice of the people, he must
 meet
 the common man's three post-Sept 11th demands: (a)
 get
 even; (b) end the insecurity; (c) return things to
 where they were on Sept. 10th. In essence, the
 President is asked by the people to "cure" them of
 this disease, of A SENSE OF TERROR, from which they
 suffer and under whose influence they cannot
 function.
 This means that he must act. 
 
 My first correspondence to you came last Saturday
 when
 I was made aware that the President had chosen to
 act.
 I felt that no action on his part could achieve his
 people's three demands. To these plebian
 considerations, he also had to integrate the
 demands
 of all the patrician interests that characterize
 the
 Republican Party. While the paralyzing impact of
 terror makes action necessary, the target is
 ultimately the lands from which eminates the bulk
 of
 the feul that runs the West. And, so the President
 must consider the three demands of the freightened
 and
 angered masses along with the limitations imposed
 by
 grander practical factors.
 
 Mr. Bush must also face the fact that none of our
 "allies" were hit as we were. Therefore, to join
 our
 coalition is to invite a threat that is not only
 unmanagable but would not exist for them if these
 nation broke with the Americans. Bin Laden has
 passsed
 the word that those Western states that keep clear
 of
 our Grand Alliance will be spared. How could a
 government, therefore, justify to its citizens that
 it
 has brought on them terrorism with which it cannot
 cope only in order to assist the only target of the
 terrorism, America.
 
 Then there are the Moslem states. Fragmented most
 skillfully by the European colonialists for about a
 century, so that they were powerless, subserviance
 to
 the West has now come to be seen as the greatest
 sin
 to illegitamizes a regime. Besides that, this
 terror
 campaign has been declared a "Jihad," a holy war.
 On
 would thus be betraying God and man by joining the
 Grand Alliance. As a result, Moslem states have
 followed a comical process of being in and out at
 the
 same time, actively assisting one side and then the
 other, so that, in sum, their contribution has to
 be
 counterproductive from our point of view, lest they
 be
 seen as-- more than traitors-- vile sinners.
 
 In sum then, the United States is alone. And--
 until
 failure mixes with the cost in treasure and blood--
 united. But as costs rise-- Vietnam is an example--
 the finger of guilt will point every-which-way and
 domestic squables will dictate military policy. One
 cannot help but wonder, in light of the forboding
 precedence of defeat, if Mr. Bush has considered
 the
 dictum: above all do no harm. In other words, has
 he
 weighed the advantages and disadvantages of action
 as
 opposed to inaction?
 
 Please consider as the essential element of my
 position the view that if we do NOTHING about Sept
 11th; that, I believe, will enhance the credibility
 of
 our threat that should another major terrorist
 incident occur we will pulverize with
 nucleat-tipped
 ICBMs the locations where the Mullahs can be found.
 Our threat should be limited to incidents in the
 United States. All other acts against US
 instalations
 abroad should be met through the action of an
 international consortium whose objective it is to
 cut-off the Mullahs' "hands" with which they commit
 terror (such as bin Laden's organization-- one of
 several). Thus, bin Laden's fate is sealed, no
 matter
 what else happens. But there are better ways of
 getting this desert rat than with the top of the
 line
 of our forces. We cannot let others think that the
 best of what we have was needed to destroy the best
 of
 what they have. Better defence of our installations
 in
 coordination with our Grand Alliance would serve
 better the elimination of terrorism's "middle
 management." Failled efforts may school them well
 for
 the next time. But if we turn these into major
 embarassments as our superior covert operations
 achieve a high standard of competence under
 diplomatic
 support, success will be assured and the number of
 willing "martyrs" will decrease. But in such cases
 we
 must work slowly, steadily and quietly.
 
 Unfortunately, a very important secret is out. We
 can
 ONLY function as an open society and, therefore,
 cannot do for our instalations in-country what we
 can
 do for those abroad. Our vulnerability assures that
 dramatic assaults on our foreign instalations will
 serve as training tools rather than ultimate goals.
 So
 long as the Muslim War against the "Great Satan"
 continues, if we do nothing, America is the prime
 target. Our defencelessness insures that. It is
 almost
 comical how the sending of antrhax by mail can so
 disrupt American society. One can only imagine what
 awaits us when we are under viral attack. It takes
 many bacteria (which are living organisms and
 therefore tend to perish before they infect) to
 make
 people deathly sick. It only takes one virus (and
 since it is not a living organism it can survive
 under
 harsh circumstances) and for viruses there are no
 antibiotics. I also cringe in shame at how the
 turning
 of civilian aircraft into guided misilles is
 considered such a sohisticated operation-- just so
 as
 not to expose how wrecklessly unprepared were, AND
 ARE, the airlines. Stupid mistakes on the
 terrorists'
 part have been eiminated by on the job learning. We
 can only expect truly more sophisticated operations
 from here on in.
 
 This raises the question of whether Mr. Bushe's
 neither/nor response, above all, does no harm. We
 as a
 nation have suffered enough. If we deem whatever
 comes
 next to be terrorism's response to our air assault
 on
 Afghanistan, Mr. Bush will be held personally
 responsible. What then befalls him is nothing
 compared
 to the weakness that befalls the nation once this
 all
 becomes a political football. With mid-term
 elections
 one year away, one can easily forsee a
 terror-politics
 coordination to render America even more helpless
 than
 now, possibly pleading with the terrorists for
 "negotiations," as was done in 1968 after a major
 offensive in Vietnam.
 
 Time is NOT on our side. So what can we do?
 
 Let us recall that some two decades ago Khomeini
 sought to unite the Moslem World in a religious
 purge
 of itself. From our point of view, that meant to
 learn
 to live not wanting the global modernity we were
 offering. Previously, secular Pan-Arabism had its
 heroes. And their demise did cause some aggitation.
 But secular nationalism suffered from a
 self-limitation that never created a problem in the
 Middle East which we could not manage. Our
 insurmountable troubles began when the Moslem Youth
 was sought after in a religious crusade. I strongly
 recommend reading Ofira Seliktar's FAILING THE
 CRYSTAL
 BALL TEST (2000) for an analysis of America's
 inability to confront the two steps assault of  the
 Mullahs: redemtion of the faithful and attack on
 the
 Great Satan.
 
 Had any in our Government been less cynical, they
 would have seen the parallel between the
 moblization
 of Moslem youths, irrespective of sects or
 nationality, into a sort of Moslems sans
 frontieres,
 and the moblilization of Polish youth against the
 Soviets. Pope Paul, like Khomeini, called on them
 to
 sacrifice for faith instead of material things.
 Yet,
 we honored one and besmerched the other. In both
 cases
 secular states were helpless. The symbols of faith
 came to mean more than the sufffering inflicted by
 the
 state. Concequently, the resistance could not be
 quelled. As we go after bin Laden, we refuse to
 recall
 the Polish CP's lack of sucess killing by his
 Catholic
 counterparts. The more such priests died, the more
 youths came to sacrifice security and to face
 sufffering.
 
 The trouble with action is that if you undershoot,
 you
 lose miserably. It is very much like trying to kill
 a
 snake by stomping on its middle; you leave yourself
 vulnerable to its poisonous fangs. That is why I
 feel
 that we have no choise but to threaten the head.
 And,
 should our threat succeed, we have no choise but to
 co-exist with the Mullahs in the Muslim world. Just
 as
 JFK threatened the Soviets in the past (I thank
 Dolf
 Droge for the very interesting case-example)we must
 make clear that we hold them, the Mullahs,
 responsible
 should another major incident occur and will "nuke"
 them. In that way, we live under the threat of
 their
 irresistable power to terrorize the United States
 and
 they live under the threat of our irresistable
 power
 to wipe them and all their "holy sites" (I thank
 Mr.
 Phillip Karber for that consideration as an
 alternative to Teharan and Baggdad) off the face of
 the earth. We then live back in the MAD-- mutually
 assured destruction-- of the Cold War, as we did
 with
 the Soviets. And, we can hope that the Moslem
 peoples
 will, like the peoples of the Red Bloc, reverse
 this
 system, moving history backwards to Medieval times.
 
 The Taliban and the Mullahs are a Moslem World
 solution to Moslem World problems. It is their
 world
 and we must not interfere. Economic need on both
 sides
 will insure state-to-state accords and diplomacy.
 We
 have prevailed over Communism while dealing with
 them
 both in terms of cooperation and MAD; we must now
 prevail over the "martyrs for Allah" and the
 Mullahs;
 until then we must coexist in the same way. This
 can
 only be done, as in the Cold War, through credible
 deterrence. And yet, we cannot forget that our Cold
 War credibility would not have existed without our
 demonstrations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We might,
 therefore-- and by God I pray we don't-- be forced
 to
 demonstrate the power and feasability of our unique
 nuclear capablility. That may also serve to educate
 other potential threats.
 
 Our goal should be to insure the impenetrability of
 the continental United States. That's as much as we
 have been able to hope for since WWII. For the
 rest,
 it will continue to be a complex mix of diplomacy,
 trade and force for the forseable future. Above all
 we
 must recognize that in defending our shores we have
 no
 allies. We can only have allies on common
 interests.
 
 Our enemy is not drawable on organizational charts
 as
 was the Communist Bloc. The cells are loosesly
 bound
 and unbound and rebound based on the fascilitations
 of
 the Mullahs. We cannot change that now. That takes
 time and effort and lots of ups and downs. All we
 can
 do now is deter by convincing that to AGAIN attack
 the
 US means death. The rest, well, that's what we've
 got
 generals and diplomats for.
 
 Daniel E. Teodoru