F. Terrorism: Means or End?




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