[Reader-list] the liberal response

[Boud Roukema]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Rana Dasgupta wrote:

> I have not seen any liberal opinion that is helpful
> enough to the situation to be of any significance. 

Rana, thank you for a very good comment. Here is 
some "liberal" opinion which I think you will find
helpful.

Think of it as the FAQ on the WTC bombings:
http://www.lbbs.org/qacalam.htm

> What should Bush do? What should the US be
> seeking to achieve in this situation?

== begin quote (abridged and sectioned) == 

What response should the U.S. take instead, internationally?

** long-term **
(1) The best way to deal with terrorism is to address its root
causes. Perhaps some terrorism would exist even if the
grievances of the people of the Third World were dealt with
-- grievances that lead to anger, despair, frustration,
feelings of powerlessness, and hatred -- but certainly the
ability of those who would commit terror without grievances
to recruit others would be tremendously reduced. 

(2) As a second step, we might help establish a real international
consensus against terrorism by putting on trial U.S. officials
responsible for some of the atrocities noted earlier.  ...

** short-term **
The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to be to assure
the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without
detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of
others. A number of points follow from this principle.

(1) (a) First, we must insist that any response refrain from
targeting civilians.  (b) It must refrain as well from
attacking so-called dual-use targets, those that have some
military purpose but substantially impact civilians.  ...

(2) We must insist as well that any response to the terror be
carried out according to the UN Charter.  ... No military
action should be carried out without Security Council
authorization. To bypass the Security Council is to weaken
the foundations of international law that provide security to
all nations, especially the weaker ones.

(3) And we should insist that no action and no Security
Council vote be taken without a full presentation of the
evidence assigning culpability. We don't want Washington
announcing that we should just take its word for it -- as
occurred in 1998, when the U.S. bombed a pharmaceutical plant
in Sudan, asserting that it was a chemical warfare facility,
only to acknowledge some time later that it had been
mistaken.

If -- and it's a big if -- all these conditions are met, then
we should no more object to seizing the perpetrators than we
object to having the domestic police seize a rapist or a
murderer to bring the culprit to justice.  ...

== end quote ==

> What - this is where liberals should be able to
> add to the equation - are the negative
> consequences of premature action?

(1) Ineffectiveness. A war against Afghanistan and 59
other countries would not stop terrorism, and it would
more likely encourage continued terrorism, both
against and by the USA.

(2) Given past (e.g. 1990's) history, another consequence
would be human rights violations and war crimes.

(3) Also, government repression against the world-wide
global justice movement. Here is some premature action
by legislators:
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170180.html


Reminder - here are some petitions to sign if you want to
stop "premature actions":

http://www.flora.org/coat/appeal/
http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition