My fearless forecast, informed by nothing but
my debatable reservoir of common sense, is that
much less in the way of actual action will result
from all this than anyone thinks. To be sure,
lots of money will be spent. The Gov is good
at that.
But all options being raised will prove to be much
more difficult, costly, and chancy than contemplated
by assorted armchair strategists (and all strategists
operate from armchairs). And the benefits of all
such options, from the standpoint of their advocates,
will be found to be much more lacking than realized
before the fact.
The best example of this is the difficulty the
Russians had in Afghanistan, a datum seldom raised
in all the fevered boob-tube analyses.
The best bulwark against indiscriminate or irrelevant
military acts in my view is the mantra, "find out who
did it before you kill anyone." The response must
flow from the crime and the criminals.
mbs
If I understand what Warren Christopher, Warren Rudman, Sandy Berger, Bill
Kristol, Lawrence Eagleburger, Henry Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke, among
others, have been saying in the last twelve to fifteen hours, the Bush
administration is planning a regional war against the entire Arab world,
with attacks that could reach from Pakistan to Tunisia. I think their aim
may be
to attempt to take three to to five years to completely restructure the map
of North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
This is how I interpret the rhetorical effort all of yesterday to find a
link to a "state" and to suggest that the operation was so "sophisticated"
that it required state support and that the bin Laden group operates in many
states, with a large complex network - in other words, creating political
carte blanche to occupy the entire region.
Russia and China have as much to fear from "radical Islam" as the U.S., so
they will back this. The Europeans will be too weak to stop it.
In their calculus, we cannot stop - this time - halfway to Baghdad. The
results, from the point of view of global social progress, will be
catastrophic, but they seem to know no other way....they are opening a
Pandora's Box, and will be hard pressed to close it.
I hope I am wrong and that someone on this list can offer an alternative
explanation for this intellectual assault by the grayhairs we have witnessed
in the last few hours.
Also, can someone explain the relationship between bin Laden and the Saudi
regime - it seems to me that, in the end, all of this will turn on the
internal politics of so-called "moderate" Arab regimes, especially Saudi
Arabia.
Stephen F. Diamond
School of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
