The tragedy and human suffering of Sept. 11 caused an enraged President George W. Bush to declare a global war on terror. A year later, is the United States winning that war? In the third of their e-mail debates on the attacks and their significance, Globe and Mail columnists MARCUS GEE and RICK SALUTIN cross swords

An impressive start
Marcus Gee opens
Dear Rick,
Is the United States winning the war? Well, yes and no. There has been no second terrorist attack on the United States. That in itself is something of a miracle. I fully expected at least some follow-up, particularly when the Americans hit back in Afghanistan. The fact that it hasn't come suggests the terrorist network has been badly disrupted.

One reason for that is the extraordinary success of the war in Afghanistan. When the United States began its offensive against terrorists, you argued it would only "increase their morale," provoke another attack and perhaps set off a full-scale clash between Islam and the West.

None of this came to pass. The Americans and their British and French allies completed the campaign in an astonishing three months. They managed to destroy or shut down all the major terrorist bases in Afghanistan, capture or kill hundreds of terrorists, including several of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, and help to depose the Taliban, one of the world's more repugnant regimes.

Yes, things could have gone better. Bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar remain at large. In fact, only one alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks has been charged (most, of course, never will be). But that's no surprise. From the beginning, President George W. Bush and other U.S. leaders warned the war on terrorism would be a long one, with many ups and downs, and no obvious ending.

The important thing is that the Americans have decided to fight back. Despite all the risks and uncertainties, they are confronting the threat with all their formidable skill, energy and wealth. Ultimately, I think they will prevail. Americans from the President on down are determined to rid the world of this scourge, and that's good for all of us.

Re: Pulling their punches
Rick Salutin replies
Dear Marcus,
I don't believe American decision-makers, as opposed to those "on down," are indeed "determined to rid the world of this scourge." Of course they must say they are, and they would like it to happen. But I don't see the evidence that they are willing to do what is necessary.

First, they have not been ready to focus on the kind of action needed to extirpate a small, dispersed, ideologically motivated, ruthless criminal organization. That would take what amounts to police work, in its dirtier aspects: infiltration, buying information, bribing, threatening or beating people into betraying those they know, and worse.

Instead, they chose to concentrate on attacking countries that have armies and territory etc., first Afghanistan and Iraq likely next. I find it absolutely stunning, a year later, how little they have broken into the terror networks. This means the potential for attacks remains strong and largely unabated, as the ceaseless warnings from the U.S. government indicate.

Second, for organizations as small and basically flimsy as al-Qaeda, a sense of support from larger populations is crucial. It provides them with places to hide or organize, funding, recruits and a feeling of moral justification. It's no secret that the basis for that support has come above all from two areas: the travail of the Palestinian people and the effects of sanctions on Iraq's population.

From a purely pragmatic standpoint, moving toward a resolution on either of these would have undermined the popular support the hard-core fanatics rely on in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and left them far more isolated. Instead, the United States opted to make each situation even harsher than it had been, thus doing the propaganda work of bin Laden for him. This was not predictable after Sept. 11; the United States seemed to consider alternatives, but then made a choice to stick with the program.

So they have made future Sept. 11s more, not less likely, and they know it. That's why they continually issue warnings: not just to rally support for themselves, but because it is likely to happen eventually, because of the choices they have made.

Re: What more do you want?
From: Marcus Gee
Dear Rick,
I'm surprised that you think the Americans need to play "dirtier" - an odd argument from someone who has bashed them so many times over the years for using dirty tricks to advance their interests abroad. I'm even more surprised that you think the Americans aren't doing enough police work. Sept. 11 began the biggest manhunt in history, involving tens of thousands of police and intelligence agents in the United States and around the world. The hunt has netted hundreds of terrorists suspects - 200 in Europe alone. One-third of the two dozen senior al-Qaeda leaders have been killed or captured.

It's true that many of the very top conspirators are still at large, which is why I say the war on terrorism has had mixed results. This is not easy hunting. As you point out, al-Qaeda is a dispersed organization with operatives in dozens of countries.

You may be disappointed by the results, but I don't see how you can accuse the Americans of not trying. The Central Intelligence Agency has tripled the size of its counterterrorism outfit, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has doubled its own. Tens of billions have already gone into the hunt, and that's not counting the massive homeland security effort - more airport security, more border guards, better emergency preparedness and so on.

So it's simply not true that the Americans are focusing only on military options. Despite all the predictions that the United States would lash back blindly after Sept. 11, there has been only one, brief military campaign so far, involving just a few thousand U.S. soldiers: Afghanistan. There is talk of another, bigger one in Iraq, but it has yet to happen, and perhaps it won't, if Saddam Hussein can be brought down another way.

Re: No easy task
From: Rick Salutin
Dear Marcus,
Please spare yourself further shock and trauma over my approval of dirty tricks. I dislike black ops, assassinations etc., especially when used by the United States merely to "advance their interests abroad" by, for instance, overthrowing democratically elected, mildly nationalist governments in places like Guatemala and Iran - acts for which those nations and regions are still suffering.

But I thought it was important enough to avoid future terror attacks like 9/11, both because of the carnage itself and the chain reactions that would follow, that distasteful action in the short term might be justified.

Simply adding money and personnel doesn't cut it. Take the most ballyhooed policy example: creation of one big U.S. antiterror agency. It's now admitted that 9/11 might even have been avoided, had the FBI and CIA been talking to each other - and among themselves.

So Bush amalgamates all other departments dealing with terror, adding yet another layer, and leaves those two crucial ones alone, I suppose because he doesn't want to fight the bureaucratic brush fires involved. And there are other reasons for their failure to act effectively.

It is, for instance, harder to change military tactics than to stick with what you know, such as massive air power. And changes in foreign policy regarding Israel and Iraq would have serious effects on the U.S. assumption of its right to the unimpeded, unilateral exercise of power. They'd have to rethink and rejig at least some of what they do in the world.

I am not saying American leaders are inherently brutal and hardhearted. But people like Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and, oh yes, Bush, are capable of making a decision to accept probable attacks in future, rather than undermine their other priorities. That's global realpolitik as we know it, whenever its true face sneaks into view. Even kindly, maternal and Democratic Madeleine Albright acknowledged that the starvation of Iraqi children was not too high a price, as she put it, for U.S. policy goals.

Re: Blame where it's due
From: Marcus Gee
Dear Rick,
It would be nice if Washington could wave its wand, solve the Arab-Israeli dispute and lift sanctions against Iraq, but it's not that simple, is it?

The United States has worked harder than any other country to make peace between Israelis and Arabs. At Camp David in 2000, Bill Clinton brought the two sides closer than ever, before Yasser Arafat walked out and the Palestinians launched their bloody and futile uprising. Since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has gone even further, becoming the first U.S. president to come out unequivocally for the creation of an independent Palestinian state (if one led by someone other than Arafat). It hasn't worked, for various reasons, but, again, you can't fault the Americans for not trying.

If children are dying in Iraq, the root cause isn't the United States either. It's Saddam Hussein. The sanctions would have been lifted years ago, if Saddam had taken the simple step of certifying that he did not intend to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction. Instead, he expelled United Nations weapons inspectors and built himself a network of palaces while his people went hungry.

The one sure way to remove sanctions is to remove Saddam, which is just what the Americans, one way or another, are determined to do. Anyone who really cares about Iraqi children will support them.

Re: Back where we started
From: Rick Salutin
Dear Marcus,
I don't know if the United States could wave a magic wand in the Mideast, but it sure could wave the money wand - $3-billion a year to Israel. The Israelis bluster a lot, but their military machine is massively dependent on U.S. aid. If the United States shut off the tap, they'd be crippled.

It sounded like the United States was considering the money wand when Bush ordered Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the invasion of the West Bank, but Sharon told him to stuff it and Bush caved. They may have been "trying," but only if you define that as talking, not acting.

I think this is a good example of the U.S. mindset. It clearly knows that settling Palestine would dampen the threat of future terror attacks. And it knows it has the leverage to enforce it. But it is unwilling to pay the political costs or take the flak that would ensue. That's why I say it has chosen to accept probable future Sept. 11s rather than do what would be necessary to severely lessen the possibility.

Consider what you call the "extraordinary success" of the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban are out and people's lives have improved, but this does not equal long-term success. Two cabinet members were assassinated in Kabul in recent months, and the U.S.-anointed President now has an American bodyguard, which is like painting a bull's-eye on him. At the least, it undercuts his status among proud Afghans. Outside Kabul, the warlords rule their fiefs again, including a revival of the poppy (heroin) crop, which the Taliban had eliminated, to Colin Powell's applause. There are weekly reports of battles or mere brigandage.

Why does the United States alone refuse to allow an extension of international peacekeeping beyond Kabul? Because its deal with the warlords for their help in the war included millions in bribes plus an unimpeded right to rule. Why can't it exert pressure now? Because the Taliban are not gone, just melted away and ready to fight again if the United States should, for instance, exit for a war with Iraq.

In other words, the situation is better than it was under the Taliban, but very like the situation that led to the Taliban's rise in the first place. Remember that women were far better off under the regime that preceded the U.S.-financed civil war of the 1980s than they ever have been since.

Re: A little credit, please
From: Marcus Gee
Dear Rick,
Look, no one said that getting rid of the Taliban would make Afghanistan into Shangri-la. This is a country that has endured decades of occupation and civil war. It's going to take years to make it a working society again.

But I think even you would have to admit that overthrowing a regime that blew up ancient Buddhist statues, made Hindus wear orange ID patches and executed homosexuals by pushing walls on to them has to be, on balance, a good thing. Thanks to the U.S.-led intervention, foreign aid is flooding in, international peacekeepers are patrolling the streets and girls can go to school again. It's not the end of Afghanistan's troubles, but it may be the start of a better future.

As for the Middle East, you seem to think that everything would be solved if the United States would cut Israel off at the knees, forcing it to make a fair deal with the Palestinians (funny how the same people who usually call the United States a big bully want it to push Israel around).

Two problems with that. First, it wouldn't work. An Israel without U.S. support would feel even more embattled and less willing to make risky compromises with a hostile adversary. Second, Israel has already offered a fair deal. At Camp David and in the talks that followed, Israel offered the Palestinians full statehood, 95 per cent of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a share in Jerusalem and control of key religious sites. Arafat walked away. If anyone needs pressuring, it's him.

What I really object to is your insinuation that the United States is in some way responsible for what happened on Sept. 11 and that, if it only modified its awful behaviour, everything would turn out right. That's blaming the victim, a tactic you deplore when it happens to anyone but the Americans.

The United States is not above criticism. The failure to detect the Sept. 11 conspiracy was indeed a massive intelligence screw-up, as not only you, but Time and Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal have pointed out. I find it disturbing that so many innocent people have been caught up in the huge police sweep since then.

But the Sept. 11 attack was not its fault and its response to this massive provocation has been (for the most part) responsible, competent and (yes) humane. Because of those very qualities, I'm confident that, in the end, the United States will win this war and the world will be a safer, better place.
Best,
Marcus

Re: True lack of insight
Rick Salutin concludes
Dear Marcus,
No, not responsible, I fear, since - to the extent one can generalize, based on the lineaments of public policy and mass culture - America has chosen not to take the hard steps necessary to seriously lower the danger of future attacks; not competent, as I've tried to note; but above all, and I find this the saddest failure of the United States after Sept. 11, not humane.

Its response has been deeply human - shock, fury, grief, fear, closing ranks. But not humane, if that means extending your sense of the human by identifying your trauma with that of others seemingly different from you, who may even, though not always, see you as the cause of their trauma.

George Bush pretty well excluded any such enlargement by defining the moment from the start solely as good versus evil, which leaves nowhere to go except a battle to the death between Us and Them. It requires destroying "them," but not questioning or altering oneself.

On the broad cultural level, Americans reacted in general with a typical sense of exceptionalism, as if they, and only they, ever experienced such a thing. It's as though the event revealed nothing to them about their complex ties with the rest of humanity - and it could have. I shudder to imagine how the coming week of memorials will embody that peculiar failure.

There were exceptions to the exceptionalism. At the leadership level, former mayor Rudolph Giuliani was responsible, competent and, I would say, humane, in contrast to the shallow obtuseness of the President. As for ordinary Americans, I remain moved by the parents of a young man who died in the World Trade Center, who said a few days after that they opposed any massive bombing or military action, because they didn't want other families to go through what they had just experienced.

These are concerns not about winning or losing the "war," but about failure to seize a gruesome moment as a crucial opportunity to learn, grow and advance for their own sake and the world's; and thereby make future Sept. 11s less, not more, likely. I'm not surprised, but I'm saddened.
Yours,
Rick