I just wrote a huge, long post about this, and the internet in this cafe stopped working and the whole thing got erased. So, you will all get the condensed version. First, check out the New York Times op/ed section for a variety of ideas. The Washington Post offers up some decent op/eds too, but their website gives me a headache and I can’t stand looking at it any more. My favorite links (and some of my own views, of course) are below.
Tom Friedman says, “it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst.”
One of three house editorials proposes steps that the U.S. should take to protect itself:
1. Increased security for mass transit
2. A risk-based financing formula
3. A tough chemical plant security law
4. A tough chemical plant transport law
Ian McEwan wonders how London will regain its innocence.
Sher Khan, chair of the public affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, reaches out to Londoners of all faiths.
Tariq Ali calls the attacks “The Price of Occupation,” and says “The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.”
And Crispin Black argues for reallocation of Britain’s security resources.
I think that each of these editorials offers something important; I’m not sure that any one of them is entirely right (and some, I think, are mostly wrong). So what would Jill the Policy-Maker do to fight terrorism? First, I think we need to take a good, hard look at solutions in Iraq. And the solution isn’t to leave. I was strongly against the invasion in the first place; the attack on Iraq was completely unjustified, and has left us more vulnerable to future attacks because it has taxed our resources, enraged the Muslim world, bred new generations of terrorists, and made the rest of the world less sympathetic to our cause. Let me be clear that Iraq was a mistake. But, regardless, we’re there, and it only does so much good to look back and say, “Maybe we shouldn’t have…” We have to move forward, and deal with the mess we’ve created. I believe that it would be completely unethical to abandon the Iraqi people at this point — after we’ve taken down their government, their military, and their basic infrastructure. If we leave now, well-funded international terrorist groups will be the ones restoring order, getting people food and water, and building hospitals and schools — we do not want to create that kind of opening. So we must come up with a comprehensive strategy to get Iraq back on its own feet, and we must do this as soon as possible. We must make a concerted effort to value Iraqi life just as much as we value American life, and so we must be sure that casualities are as few as possible. We must not write off dead Iraqis as “collateral damage.” And we must, must, get out soon. The longer we stay, the longer we’re viewed as an occupying force. But we must leave Iraq with something to work with.
Second, we have to end our dependence on foreign oil. We should have figured this out 30 years ago, but we didn’t; now, we’re running out of time. If we didn’t rely on oil, our international anti-terrorism strategy would be much more sensical. We’d be able to deal with Saudi Arabia, where so many of the 9/11 terrorists came from. We wouldn’t be seen as imperialists in our economic backing of Kuwait, which is seen (by us) as necessary to sustain our oil imports. We probably wouldn’t be in Iraq right now. Without the U.S. and Europe funding corrupt governments in the Middle East with oil dollars, the distribution of wealth will be less skewed;the people living in the Middle East will be forced to build up and rely more on other industries, distributing wealth more evenly and diminishing the power of the richest oil-fed ruling classes. And with clean energy, the United States will be better off environmentally. Reducing our reliance on oil is a key component of any plan to end foreign terrorism.
And finally, to use an overly-used phrase, we have to change hearts and minds. And this takes dollars. The leaders of terrorist organizations are financially well-off. Their kids are attending university in the Western world. Their families are fed. And they aren’t the ones blowing themselves up on buses. The people that are doing the dirty work for these terrorist leaders — the suicide bombers, the bomb-planters, the plane hijackers — are people who are faced with a life of hopelessness. They’ve been indoctrinated in radical, terrorist-funded schools. Their families are economically supported by terrorists, in countries where the governments do little for their citizens. Terrorists are very directly the hand that feeds them. That creates a loyalty which, apparently, is sometimes worth dying for. So what can the U.S. do? We can, first and most importantly, take the schools out of the hands of teachers of radical Islam by funding moderate Muslim leaders who open schools. I’m a big fan of secular schools, but that’s not going to happen in the Arab world right now. The people don’t want secular schools, and that’s their call, so let’s work with it. Allow them to embrace their religion without embracing hatred, anti-Westernism and death. It’s financially pragmatic, and it makes sense as a long-term anti-terrorism strategy. We can also help to support poverty alleviation and the creation of an infrastructure that gives all people access to a decent standard of living — clean water, food, an education, etc. Taking those things out of the hands of terrorists and radicals will get us a lot further than dropping bombs on Muslim countries.
What we should do about our own security is a whole other post; check out the Times op/ed for some good ideas. And please, share your own.