September 11

As time goes on, I hope Americans think of 9/11 less and less as a day of special remembrance, at least not one which becomes a kind of celebration.  The Department of Defense Web site's home page currently has a display on 9/11 that includes the label "Patriot Day" (?!?)

We don't normally celebrate disasters and defeats.  The attacks are something that need to be remembered and the losses mourned.  9/11 doesn't need to be turned into some kind of death cult to justify whatever foreign policy is being pushed at the moment.

I'm going to post here something I wrote in an old-fashioned journal - you know, the kind with paper that you write on with pen - on 9/28/01, two and half weeks after the 9/11 attacks.  It's what I was thinking about foreign policy at the time.  The only thing that might sound a bit jarring today is that I referred to hawkish advisers like Paul Wolfowitz as "isolationists."  To explain it briefly, I meant by that something like what we now call "unilateralism."  There are quite a few references to Germany; I had just returned from a trip there.

I'm reproducing here as I wrote it, with only a couple of spelling corrections and with a minimum of explanatory brackets.   This is how I was thinking three years ago.  ( I should add that in referring to Bush as our "legitimate President," I was being sarcastic.)
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9/28/01

Several quick thoughts on the War On Terror.

Our legitimate President seems to be having trouble deciding on a target.  On Monday, the message in the German papers (from Condoleeza Rice) was, we're taking out the government of Afghanistan.  And we're asking NATO to help.

By Thursday, the message from Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz was, we don't need NATO's help, we're going it alone, and we don't know if we're taking out the Afghan government or not.  This is not good.

Bush is not cut out to be a war leader.  His lame public statements the day of the attack showed that.  As did the fact he let the idea of a further tax cut be seriously kicked around.

At this point, the German leaders seem to feel that their immediate solidarity helped focus the American response.  It's beginning to look like the Bush-Wolfowitz isolationist tendencies are coming to the fore.  Schröder and Fischer [the German Chancellor and Foreign Minister] have to be wondering at this point if they're not being brushed off.

Vadimir Putin's speech to the [German] Bundestag on Wednesday was very important.  The underlying theme was, the Americans aren't willing work closely enough with us Europeans.  I expect some demonstrative differences between Europe and the US on Russia policy.

Bush needs to move ahead on military action.  Otherwise his international coalition and the support within his own party will begin to unravel.  The reporters quickly feel back on comforable categories like "hawks" and "doves."  Powell is said to have strongly opposed a push by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz to go after Iraq - or rather to use Sept. 11 as an excuse to initiate a new war with Iraq.  Powell has also been more insistent on paying attention to international opinion.  Therefore, he looks more like a "dove."

But this is superficial.  The idea so beloved by Republicans that the US should fight only wars that are quick and easy is, after all, known as "the Powell doctrine."  He may be trying to avoid an open attack but rather stick to the law-enforcement model (of a somewhat militarized version of it).

This is a problem on several levels.  If they are going to take action against the Bin Laden camps in Afghanistan before spring of 2002, they need to move quickly.  Not least of the problems is the vast numbers of refugees trying to flee the country, which is already not long away from becoming a humanitarian disaster.  Delay will also give Bin Laden time to disperse his troops, and Mullah Omar the chance to build up the Afghan army and recruit more fanatics from abroad to fight for the Taliban.

Some visible military victory is also need on political and psychological gorunds.  Without a visible action against the real enemy, the public will begin to hunt for other scapegoats.

The sudden emergence of a rightwing populist in last Sunday's election in Hamburg with 15% (?) or so who stressed only the theme of "security" is one sign of the ugly turn that things could take in some places.

One things this situation forces on the Western public is the need to understand Islam better.  And not just to know that some Muslims are fanatics and others aren't.

It's an interesting aspect of this of the role the "honor system" plays in the willingness of extemists to kill themselves in suicide attacks.  Old American practices like duelling may shed some light on this.  The person in a community dominated by the honor code will be pressured into self-sacrifice in a way that seems bizarre, even mentally deranged to people in advanced societies.

The economics of nuclear power plants was also changed on Sept. 11.  Proteciting them against that kind of air attack will drastically increase their cost.