LTE

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Succeeding Against Terrorism

Fifth in a series on the crucial issues that American
Jews should consider in the Nov. 2 presidential election.

I

t is disappointing that the presidential election
looks more and more like a referendum on
America's efforts to deal with global terrorism.
That fight is a major challenge, but not the only one
that America faces over the next four years.
It is equally important to restore our domestic vitali-
ty — by improving the economy, fixing our education-
al and health systems and reducing our governmental
and trade deficits. Our credibility abroad must be
restored as well.
That is not to say that we don't need to pay atten-
tion to domestic and global security and to
keeping Americans here and abroad as pro-
tected as we can from terrorist attacks. Al
Qaida and its affiliates are dying to do us
harm, and we need to pursue sensible and effective
policies to block their madness.
We must understand that terrorism, the deliberate
slaughter of innocent civilians, is vastly different from
political militancy. Whether it is Beslan, where
Chechens slaughtered Russian schoolchildren, or Bali,
where the Jemaah Islamiyah group murdered
Australian dancers at a nightclub, or Beersheva, where
Hamas bombed Israeli bus passengers, or Baghdad,
where Islamic insurgents murdered Iraqis lining up for
jobs in the new security force — the terrorists sought
to prove their power and demoralize the defenders of
Western, democratic institutions.
Also, terrorism is not a military target. We can strike
nations that give haven to terrorists, as we did in
Afghanistan where the Taliban had been an enthusias-
tic supporter of Osama bin Laden. And we can learn
from Israel's consistent pressure that includes military

Dry Bones

WE HOE IN SYRIA
WHERE WE PLAN
THE MURDER OF
JEWS IN ISRAEL

action where necessary, but relies primarily on
human intelligence coupled with strict watchful-
ness at the borders and in much of everyday life.
The long-term effective action will require
slow and steady work against the causes on
which the terrorists feed — a fact that the
Democratic nominee, John E Kerry, under-
stands better that the incumbent Republican,
George W. Bush. Kerry has the patience and
willingness to seek to replace the radical Islamic
schools, the madrassas that recruit terrorists, with
real schools that give impoverished students real
tools for improving their lives and their societies.
He understands the need to refute and under-
mine the messages of fundamentalist
hate through adequate U.S. support
for schools and hospitals and roads in
places where corrupt governments
consistently fail their citizens.
Most of all, Kerry rejects the Bush policies of
massive, essentially unilateral, "preemptive" over-
reaction based on faulty information and inade-
quate planning. Our not "winning the peace" in
Iraq has not made America or Iraq or any place
else in the world more secure as the bombings in
Baghdad, or the ones last week in Egypt at Red
Sea resorts filled with Israelis, so cruelly prove.
Would Bush go it alone against Iran, too?
Bush has been, at best, lukewarm about the
sensible recommendations of the 9-11 Commission —
for example, adequate resources for defending our
ports or equipping our first responders. And while he
talks about the dangers of terrorists' getting nuclear
weapons, he has done little to protect the nuclear arms
that the terrorists might get from former Soviet Union
repositories. He is even allowing the development of

AND THEN THE
ZIONISTS SNEAK
IN AND BLOW UP
OUR AGENTS?!

EDITORIAL

Diplomatic Follies

W

hen I was in school, we learned that the end
of history's rainbow lay at the door of the
United Nations.
This is where it had all been heading, the happy
ending to the most terrible events in human history.
We held mock sessions of the General Assembly and
studied how cooperative effort would banish war.
Oppression of one nation by another would be relegat-
ed to the dust heap of history. Genocide would be
blotted out forever.
What's more, we believed it.
Does anyone still?
We sneered at the John Birch Society billboards of
the 1960s that demanded a U.S. withdrawal from the
United Nations. Now it doesn't sound all that bad.
There certainly must be a better use for that expen-
sive real estate along Manhattan's East River. Besides,
the U.N. probably would be much happier in, say,
Paris. The French have a Er greater tolerance for obfus-

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor@thejewishnews.com

American tactical atomic bombs, "bunker busters," a
step that many other nations think undermines arms
control efforts.
It will take much more than talking a tough line to
build a future in which terror has been curbed. It will
take inclusive, forward-looking policies that have been
sadly missing from the Bush administration arsenal. ❑

how to contain and control international
cation.
threats.
The main occupation of U.N. delegates now
Sure, they do. Two world wars proved that.
seems to be accumulating unpaid parking tick-
The Germans, who were dragged into
ets and passing resolutions condemning Israel
democracy only under an American occupa-
for the unforgivable sin of defending itself.
tion, and protected from losing it only by the
As for keeping the peace, its main response
projection of American power, now want to
to the world's most serious problems is to
lecture us on the proper use of both the demo-
wring its hands at them. Its record at stopping
cratic process and power.
genocidal slaughter is laughable. It was ineffec-
GEO R GE
Boys, go peddle your sanctimony some-
tual in Bosnia, absent in Rwanda, paralyzed in
CAN TOR
where else.
Sudan.
Reali ty
The Germans and French have already sig-
This is what scares me about Sen. John Kerry's
Che ck
naled
Kerry that there is no chance in the
preferred pathway out of the mess President
world
that they will go into Iraq. Which leaves
George W. Bush has made in Iraq. The U.N. is a
him where? The U.N.? I'd rather depend on Larry,
pretty weak reed and the other options aren't much
Moe and Curly.
better.
When much is promised, much is expected, and dis-
When the Soviet Union was a threat and all of
appointment in the feeble performance of this body is
Europe lay under its guns, countries like Germany
all the keener because of what it might have been. If
were all too happy to use their influence to further
they ever get to the bottom of the oil-for-food scandal
international support for American policy.
in pre-war Iraq, disappointment may be too mild a
But now that they believe, mistakenly, the direct
word.
threat to them is gone, the nations of Europe turn up
A former, pro-Israel diplomat once described the
their eyes and deplore any kind of armed confronta-
U.N. as "a dangerous place." It still is, and, as a result,
tion. Far more attuned to nuance than the "cowboys"
the world is a more dangerous place, too. ❑
who run American foreign policy, they know better

10/15

2004

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