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September 17, 2001
by Eugene Narrett, Ph.D.
Americans have barely begun to absorb the shock and pain of the assault on our nation and already there are many signs that the Federal government is erring badly in the manner of its response. The errors of policy and method that helped the attack succeed are leading to further errors empowering America's enemies and degrading our sovereignty and sense of identity. The Bush Administration has secured the unanimous backing of NATO for American action. That is good and would be better if the background for this initiative was not NATO's assault (in concert with drug-running Islamic terrorists) on Yugoslavia under the rubric of "humanitarian intervention." True, now it is different: the prime member of NATO has been egregiously attacked so NATO's original defensive mission is pertinent. But there are signs that support is part of a pervasive diffusion of sovereign decisions, including to unfriendly and even hostile nations. The day after the attacks on New York and Washington, Colin Powell called for Israel to meet with Yasser Arafat to re-start the "peace process." Since Arafat directly oversees the largest and best supplied congeries of terrorist groups in the world, and that the Oslo process has been a major engine of global instability, this State Department move indicated a very incendiary form of cynicism. The fact that America's Executive Branch has not publicly rebuked and properly characterized the PLO leader's outrageous attempts to be included in the anti-terror coalition is cause for further concern. The same failure is being played out with Syria, occupier of Lebanon since 1986, major exporter of heroin and host to most of the terrorist groups managed by Arafat. During the weekend after the attack, Administration spokesmen followed by the herd of talking hairstyles in the media focused on the ostensible need to secure Pakistan's assistance and permission to pursue Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is indeed a maniacal hater of America and western civilization but he is not the main source and sponsor of terrorism, particularly not for operations of the magnitude of those on September 11. The focus on him, and on purchased Pakistani 'help' are failures of sovereignty and strategy that raise questions about Executive Branch good faith. As usual the State Department leads the way in devising new internationalist entanglements that empower the enemy. Sunday September 16, Pakistan challenged the potential role of India and Israel in the fight against terror states and Secretary Powell agreed that Pakistan's concerns were worthy. Since Pakistan has been a client and catspaw of Communist China and a breeding ground for Pan-Islamic fanatics there is something badly amiss near the of our government as it sets out to fight this war. That gets to a signal point: Congress should already have declared war, the Constitutional prerequisite for military actions. But there has been no public discussion of a Congressional declaration though there is much talk (and media promotion) of "America at War." This omission puts in ominous light the 'consensus' that this will be a protracted (endless?) conflict as indeed it will be if our enemies are not identified and if Congress cedes, however implicitly, its representative function. There has been no public scrutiny of Egyptian attitudes in this crisis. But Egypt is enmeshed with Sudan's Islamic dictatorship in its war on the south of that nation. For thirty years Sudan has been one of the main regions for training terrorists for Arafat and Saddam Hussein. Attitudes in Egypt, recipient of enormous amounts of American cash aid and military equipment, reveal intense anti-American vitriol. Consider only the mocking comments from this weekend's supplement to the newspaper whose editors are appointed by the Egyptian President. "People begin to wonder if the US is a paper tiger. Perhaps the scenes of jubilation from around the third world will act as a humbling experience. The rage of the dispossessed and disenfranchised must come home to roost one day," (article, "the giant's feet of clay"). Is it America's task to feed and enfranchise those impoverished and brutalized by oppressive kleptocracies like those that dominate the Islamic world? Other commentators in Al Ahram insisted that the attacks "were planned and executed by American citizens, "like the Michigan extremists" ("an inside job," Sala Montass). Finally, Salamma A. Salamma stated that the disasters proved that "anger and frustration at Washington's policies are not confined to Arab and Islamic peoples. By failing to support the 'third world' (for example, at Durban), "America has turned the love and admiration of the world into universal suspicion and mistrust" (Al Ahram, Sept. 13-19). These are not the words or attitudes of an ally but of an enemy. Yet it is presumed that Egypt will be in 'the anti-terror coalition.' Anyone who reads Bin Laden's various manifestos (for example, his "declaration of war on the Americans occupying the land of the two sanctities," that is, Saudi Arabia) knows that he hates this nation. But as Dr. Laurie Mylroie (Wall Street Journal, 09-13) and Dr. Benjamin Zycher of the Pacific Research Institute have pointed out, "the argument that a bitter fanatic living in the deserts of Afghanistan is responsible for this operation is simply not plausible --| The events of this week were orchestrated by a modern state intelligence service with substantial resources. Nevertheless, the argument that Bin Laden is primarily responsible will be encouraged in coming days by the 'discovery' of an amazing series of false clues planted by the Iraqis." If this is a war (and it is, one frequently declared by various Islamist groups) than Congress needs to declare it. Americans will have to free themselves from mass media novocaine and demand that our leaders distinguish friends from foes and go after the latter with full force before we endure further attacks. One need only read the media in the various Arab states to see how many are against us and that our true allies are indeed NATO (including Turkey), Russia, Japan, Israel and India. It is with them that we should coordinate full war activities, striking quickly, massively and in sustained fashion. And we will have to demand that our government free itself from direction by big oil, or at least redirect its hungers toward development of domestic energy sources currently closed by treacherous 'environmentalists.' Only if the people insist that their representatives take this path will peace arise from the current grief. As the saying goes, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Dr. Eugene Narrett is a writer and teacher in Massachusetts and is the author of Gathered Against Jerusalem: Essays on a False Peace (Dec. 2000). His new book, Israel Awakened: A Chronicle of the Oslo War, is currently available at www.1stbooks.com/bookview/7421.
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