THE CRISIS AND ITS RESOLUTION

(Based on the situation as of 23 September 2001)

An enemy strike against the United States typically brings an immediate counter-aggressive response from the country’s political leaders and population. The present crisis over the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon provides no exception. Over 90% of the American public, if the sample surveys are correct, want a sharp retaliation against the most likely offenders in the terrorist attacks. President George Bush and his staff, from the Vice President down, have been talking in harsh terms, conducive to aggressive action and a heightened sense of crisis around the world.

The President has chosen language of an incredible kind. He has called for a "crusade," a term offensive to Muslims everywhere and even to Christian and secular people. He has called for "war," saying the country was at war, without being able to identify an enemy nation, acting in great haste to violate the Constitution, and finding quick support from an equally aroused Congress. The military is mobilizing.

The media are excited and aggressive as well. It is correct to use the word "hysterical" to describe the country’s state of mind, from top to bottom.

With rare exceptions, the media and politicians are exceedingly careful to avoid tying in the enemy attacks with the struggle going on in Palestine and Israel, nor does the word "Jerusalem" occur.* Yet everyone with a particle of historical information on the background of these countries and of the enemies of America knows that the attacks are the direct consequence of terrible conflicts going back to 1947 in Israel and Palestine and throughout the Middle East. And one knows, too, that there has never been the slightest indication that the Islamic world of a billion souls has conceded Jerusalem -- its third holy city, as well as the holy city of Jews and Christians -- to the government of Israel, nor is there the slightest indication that this same Islamic world will ever concede Jerusalem to Israel in the future.

Until September 11, the numerous flagrant contradictions and handicaps that United States international policies have had to endure, and the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, warfare, and defensive measures of many kinds that have gone to help Israel maintain an ultimately untenable position over a period of several decades, have appeared to hold off the most egregious enemies and assaults.

Now, after September 11, we see that we cannot even preserve this kind of precarious and costly situation, but must expect it to worsen, to a degree that no one can foresee exactly, but might possibly be fully catastrophic. The terrorist destruction of nuclear power installations on the one hand and prolonged world economic and social depression on the other hand have to be considered possible.

Practically no attention is being given to alternative policies or to the basic causes of the terrorist attacks upon America, now or in the years preceding.

Worse, little attention is being given now to the likely consequences of retaliatory attacks. Candidates for military attacks, the presumed targets of our denominated "war" are certain pointed spots in Afghanistan, and/or the government of that country, and/or the government and military installations of Iraq, the Sudan government, and possibly Syria. But our military does not exclude a possible need to descend upon indicated areas of Pakistan, Tadjikistan, Ouzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kashmir (India), and/or Somalia or even Latin-American locations -- wherever the terrorist enemy is determined by the CIA or FBI or MI to be crouched.

Meanwhile, experts in Western Europe, Russia, and, to the degree to which they are free to speak, in America, are without exception, warning of the perils, amounting to a dire foreboding, that adhere to the invasion of Afghanistan by ground forces, but even, too, by air power. This risk will be taken in full knowledge that, as losses of American lives occur, the American public and military forces will clamor for more and more terrible measures to be taken against the enemy, whether real or suspected.

The costs of the projected actions will almost surely exceed the bitter costs of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. If such costs bring some semblance of life to declining economies, it will be a ghostlike life, for it will develop not out of the commerce of what is good for people but emerge from wastes of all kinds -- human, material, of time, of every decent value in life. Moreover, the violent pursuit of individual enemies, or of countries deemed to protect or foster them, will bring damage to the environment of the Earth, breed innumerable enemies for the United States, and win practically no friends.

Unhappily, although some will say that this is what we deserve, the United States is in a "no-win" position, if it pursues its past and present course. Examine the case of Osama bin Laden, with good reason presumed to be involved at the top in the attacks against America. If Bin Laden is killed by American agents, he will become a martyr and inspiration to a horde of young Muslims. If he lives, he will continue to be a hero. If he is tried in courts of law anywhere, he will present a case that will be applauded by hundreds of millions of people around the world. If after trial he is imprisoned, he will be the absent hero of innumerable demonstrations, riots, killings, terrorist acts, and petitions for release. If he is executed, the martyr image and its consequences will be reinforced.

Examine then the case of military action. If no such action is taken, the USA stands a net loser, target for more attacks in any event. If the targeted enemies are subdued and their governments fall, worldwide enmity against the USA increases and the terrorist avenue is resumed forcefully.

If the USA attacks, and the fates of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and France and America in Vietnam befall the American forces now employed, the direct loss is great and the terrorist war again gains in strength.

Even if the United States pursues legal processes to obtain justice against the individual offenders, it cannot win, for legal processes will bring out the whole sad history of the case against America and whether the case against the indicted persons is won or lost matters little, for, if it is won, a great many Americans will feel cheated of a proper retribution. And of course, terrorism will expand many-fold.

To conclude, the preferable course for the United States is to seek justice under national and international law for the culprits. If snatch-forces must be detailed to assist the law, so be it. However, meanwhile and immediately, realizing how little this legal course will affect the nation’s future or the world in itself, the United States should act decisively to correct the Israel-Palestine condition. Also, meanwhile and immediately, the United States should propose to lead a vastly ambitious and hitherto undreamed of program for a better world.

The way to stop this war that is being foisted upon the world and to stop subsequent terror is plain: the United Nations Assembly and the UN Security Council, the USA permitting, in emergency sessions, can ask the United States to hold off military attacks, and at the same time declare and arrange for Jerusalem to be a World City, to be governed and policed by the UN, and to be open and free to all religious and secular groups and persons.

The city’s religious centers must stand as they are now, and must be undisturbed. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and other sects can celebrate their religions in freedom and safety. A system of democratic functional representation can give autonomy to the several social and political groupings that would freely form.

Once these actions are taken, "terrorism" will decline sharply, hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved, many millions of human beings will be spared from ruin, hundreds of billions of dollars in property will be preserved, extreme fundamentalists will retire to their own niches, and the world economy and stock markets will pull out of their recession.

Friendships among the nations will revive. The world will feel new hope and a constructive vigor.

Jews everywhere will be relieved of the burden of a divided conscience. Too, they will be freed to participate fully in the wide world. The loss of Jewish leadership and resources, or at least the lesser increase in these, in many realms of public concern and in many countries, has been an invisible expense on a number of national accounts.

Still, as praiseworthy and appreciated as this new American policy will be around the world, it will not suffice to address and fix the basically grave economic and social problems of the global society. Because of its control of resources and technology, America is potentially the most effective instrument for obtaining a world worth living in. What kind of a program is indicated, if the United States is to bring the careening world to an even keel and keep it balanced? Substantially the following eight-point program, or a program much like it, would be called for, to lead to a beneficial and benevolent order of mankind.

1. The American government would pledge itself to an effective world union that would act promptly to achieve the goals of humanity.

2. The American government would drive itself and the family of nations toward guaranteeing every human a decent subsistence, including basic food, shelter, medicine, protection of personal rights and safety, and an education.

3. An absolute ban on all nuclear weapons would be imposed on all countries, without exception.

4. The veto power possessed by certain nations over the actions of the United Nations Security Council would be abolished, and the Security Council made more representative of the population, resources, and skills of the world.

5. A single world currency would be established, under the control of a special agency of the UN Security Council.

6. Ethnic minorities, as well as all persons, would have the right to an effective appeal of grievances, including the provision of reasonable autonomy.

7. No religious group anywhere would be armed, including any religious elements who are officially sponsored by a government, nor would any religious group anywhere be given government protection beyond what is normally extended to any other religious group.

8. A new Tax for World Justice and Order would be levied per capita on all Americans – man, woman, and child -- in the amount needed to carry into effect the preceding seven policies. The government would provide from other financial sources the amount of this tax for all persons too poor or dependent to pay their share. All other governments would be required to pay their share of this tax, and the proceeds could be administered by an agency of the Security Council of the United Nations

Unless the United States of America should adopt this program or one that achieved the same ends, the USA most likely would serve up a soup of weak, ineffectual, and bad policies that would induce further disasters, be they gradual and long-lasting as in the Palestine area, or short-term horrific as in the events of September 11.

All of this, set forth above, is what may be meant by the words on the lips of so many people today: "The world will never be the same again."

* On September 24, the New York Times described some of Bin Laden’s connections and affiliates, including, in Egypt, "The Islamic Front for Fighting Crusaders and Jews," and "The Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Sites," which claimed responsibility for the bombings of the American Embassies in 1998.(A de G)

An earlier Appeal of 12 September 2001 follows ...