-Caveat Lector-
ANALYSIS: Europe Cringes at President Bush's 'Crusade' Against Terrorists
By Peter Ford
[Christian Science Monitor - Paris -September 19, 2001): As Europeans wait to
see
how the United States is planning to retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks
in
Washington and New York, there is growing anxiety here about the tone of
American
war rhetoric.President Bush's reference to a "crusade" against terrorism, which
passed almost unnoticed by Americans, rang alarm bells in Europe.
It raised fears that the terrorist attacks could spark a 'clash of
civilizations'
between Christians and Muslims, sowing fresh winds of hatred and mistrust. "We
have
to avoid a clash of civilizations at all costs," French foreign minister Hubert
Vedrine said on Sunday. "One has to avoid falling into this huge trap, this
monstrous trap" which he said had been "conceived by the instigators of the
assault."
On Sunday, Bush warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is
going
to take awhile." He and other U.S. officials have said that renegade Islamic
fundamentalist Osama bin Laden is the most likely suspect in the attacks. His
use
of the word "crusade," said Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in
Marseille, France, "was most unfortunate."
"It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim
world,"
by Christian knights, who launched repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem over
the
course of several hundred years.Bush sought to calm American Muslims' fears of a
backlash against them on Monday by appearing at an Islamic center in Washington.
There he assured Americans that "the face of terror is not the true faith of
Islam.
That's not what Islam is all about."But his earlier comments, declaring a war
between good and evil, shocked Europeans.
"If this 'war' takes a form that affronts moderate Arab opinion, if it has the
air
of a clash of civilizations, there is a strong risk that it will contribute to
Osama
bin Laden's goal: a conflict between the Arab-Muslim world and the West," warned
the
Paris daily Le Monde on Tuesday in an editorial."Bush is walking a fine line,"
suggested Dominique Moisi, a political analyst with the French Institute for
International Relations, the country's top foreign policy think tank.
"The same black and white language he uses to rally Americans behind him is just
the
sort of language that risks splitting the international coalition he is trying
to
build."This confusion between politics and religion ... risks encouraging a
clash of
civilizations in a religious sense, which is very dangerous," he added.On
Monday,
Taliban deputy leader Mohammed Hasan Akhund warned his fellow Afghans to prepare
for
'Jihad' - holy war - against America, if U.S. forces attack Afghanistan.
While almost every world leader agrees with Washington that the terrorists who
destroyed the World Trade Center were evil, not all of those leaders -
especially in
the Middle East - identify the United States with good.British prime minister
Tony
Blair has gone out of his way this week to make it clear
that the battle against terrorists is a battle not between Christians and
Muslims,
but between civilized values and fanaticism. In that battle, he said Monday,
"the
vast majority of decent law-abiding Muslims" opposed fanaticism.
It is their support for Washington's war that could be undermined by the sort of
language on the president's lips, warns Hussein Amin, a former Egyptian
ambassador
who now lectures on international affairs. "The whole tone is that of one
civilization against another," he finds. "It is a superior way of speaking, and
I
fear the consequences - the world being divided into two between those who think
themselves superior" and the rest.Moderate Muslim opinion could also easily be
swayed against America, predicted Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim
Parliament in Britain, an umbrella group for Muslim organizations.
"If they end up killing innocent civilians it will be very unfair," Dr. Siddiqui
said. "The problems will arise if people see that justice has not been done."
French President Jacques Chirac, who arrived in Washington on Tuesday, and
Blair,
who will see Bush on Thursday, are expected to offer Europe's solidarity but to
stop
short of offering Washington a blank check. If European help is needed,
Europeans
want to be in on the planning, officials here say.
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