|
America At War:
U.S. Strikes Afghanistan
With Leon Feurth
National Security Adviser to Vice President Gore
Monday, Oct. 15, 2001; 11 a.m. EDT
U.S. and British forces have continuted their series of strikes in Afghanistan targeting al Qaeda training centers and the country's ruling Taliban. President Bush described the strikes as a "sustained, comprehensive and relentless" campaign against terrorism, and the strikes reportedly hit a variety of strategic targets.
Leon Feurth , an expert on national security and military affairs served as Vice President Gore's national security adviser and currently teaches at George Washington Univesity. He was online Monday, Oct. 15, to discuss U.S. policy in the Middle East and the ongoing situation in the region.
The transcript follows.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
washingtonpost.com:
Good morning, Mr. Feurth, and thank you for joining us. What do you think of the progress of U.S. and coalition air strikes in Afghanistan? Should Americans be settling in for the long haul, as in the Cold War?
Leon Feurth: The air strikes have probably accomplished their first purpose, which is to defeat any air defense system the Taliban had operating, and to open the skies over Afghanistan to U.S. aircraft. The air strikes have probably also succeeded in destroying as many training locations or visible parts of the terrorist infrastructure as we could identify. They may well have disrupted the command and control system and communication systems of the Taliban government. It doesn't look as if we have yet targeted the Taliban military force, as such. But that may be next. We appear to be moving slowly in hopes of seeing some kind of coalition government come into being before we use air power for a decisive strike against concentrations of Taliban forces.
We should definitely settle in for the long haul. But the long haul will probably be going on long after air power does everything it can.
Mechanicsburg, Pa.:
Georgie Ann Geyer, syndicated columnist, says that the seven million Muslims in the U.S. are Muslims first and Americans second. She thinks this is a religious war and Muslims in America are a potential fifth column supporting Muslim interests over U.S. interests and may provide support to terriorist organizations. What are your thoughts on this issue?
Leon Feurth: That kind of thing has been said about every minority group in America -- about Roman Catholics, about Jews, and now about Arab-Americans. The magic in this country is that, at some level, we all acquire an identity as Americans that binds us together in such a way as to convert diversity into strength.
Washington, D.C.:
Can you talk about the Clinton-Gore strategy for Middle East policy? Do you think, as some are accusing, that the Clinton Middle East policy contributed to the anti-American sentiment in that part of the world?
Leon Feurth: The Clinton-Gore policy was to try to encourage a true peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians; to contain both Iraq and Iran; to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction into the region; and to try to disrupt networks of terrorists that originated in the region.
Anti-American sentiment in the Middle East is based in the first instance on highly distorted perception of what kind of people we are and what our way of life actually is all about. Dislike for us based on our policies toward Israel is clearly an important factor, but the root of the problem goes deeper. Those who hate us most deeply in the region not only want us to abandon our support for Israel, but to pull out from Saudi Arabia and to generally withdraw from the Middle East. The consequences of that would be disastrous for us.
Arlington, Va.:
Just to prove elections matter, do you think Gore would have gotten us into this mess?
Leon Feurth: I think that this was going to happen regardless of who was president of the United States.
London, England:
There is lots of publicity about how the most recent attacks on civilians in the U.S. are termed terrorist attacks by people around the world.
If both sides are in a state of war (overt as well as covert), is any attack on civilians a terrorist act? If so, was the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a terrorist attack?
Leon Feurth: Whatever you think of the nuclear attacks against Japan, they were carried out on the circumstances of total war initiated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. An act of terror, generally speaking, is committed against a population at peace, more terrifying because it occurs against a backdrop of normalcy.
Of course, one of the gravest concerns we have is that the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist group could lead to an assault on people who are at peace of a magnitude equivalent to war. The attack on the World Trade Center crosses that threshhold, but worse is possible.
Southington, Conn.:
Do you see any way that we can achieve success in our military actions against the Al-Quaeda organization? The war is in our own country now with all the terrorism.
What if we brought our military back to first protect our borders while the Homeland Security seek out the terrorists. Israel is very sucessful in protecting their own.
Leon Feurth: Homeland security looks like it will evolve into a permanent new mission for the military, and may even require the creation of a separate command. But it will be different from other military commands, because it will depend upon constant and intimate cooperation between civil defense systems, as well as police and the FBI.
Washington, D.C.:
Do you think it was necessary to create the Office of Homeland Security? Is it legitimate to create a Cabinet-level agency wholesale? Doesn't Congress need to charter and fund it?
Leon Feurth: I do think that it was necessary to create this post in the hope of being able to do for the United States as a whole what the Emergency Management System was able to do for New York City under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Eventually, there probably should be a legislative mandate in Congress. But the Congress would be well advised to allow the Executive Branch time to experiment and find its way in the development of this system before attempting to crystallize it in law. There will have to be trial and error first.
Alexandria, Va.:
President Clinton's "bridging proposals" of December 2000 required the Palestinian Authority to renounce its dream of settling pre-1967 Israel with waves of Palestinian immigrants (the so-called "right of return.")
Should President Bush in any peace proposal also require a renunciation of Palestinian claims to settlement rights inside of Israel's pre-1967 borders?
Leon Feurth: I think he would have to. An unlimited right of return would overwhelm the Israeli state -- one of the most difficult sticking points in a peace negotiation. But I believe that toward the end of the Clinton administration, some progress had been made. The pity is that Arafat did not consider acceptable the offer that was on the table at the end from Prime Minister Barak, which would have resulted in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Seaside, Calif.:
I keep hearing about how U.S. policies in the Middle East are to blame for the terrorist attacks. Specifically, our support for Israel and sanctions against Iraq. I have trouble accepting this view at face value. After all, our policies were not developed in a vacuum, but as a result of what the Arab nations have, or have not done.
Because international relations are more art than science, I have no doubt we have made mistakes, but I also think we have tried to do our best in a horribly complex and frustrating situation. I think America is being unfairly blamed for the inability of middle eastern countries to get their own houses in order. Is that an accurate assessment?
Leon Feurth: Yes.
Arlington, Va.:
Was Osama bin Laden considered by either President Clinton or Vice President Gore to be a primary threat? Was he considered as dangerous as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic?
Leon Feurth: We considered Milosevic to be a major threat to stability in the Balkans. We considered Saddam Hussein to be a major threat to stability in his region. We considered Osama bin Laden to be part of a worldwide threat.
Arlington, Va.:
First, it seems to me that the administration committed a serious strategic error by framing the conflict as war against terrorism, writ large, rather than against al-Queda (sp?) specifically. Now we will be in the unenviable situation of having to render Solomon-like decisions on whether certain organizations are "terrorist" or just "militant," decisions that will almost certainly be influenced entirely by Realpolitik, thus devoid of the moral force which we often assume to gird our foreign policy. Do you agree?
Second, assuming that our security agencies are able to ferret out the money trail behind bin Laden and his minions, what will we do if we learn that Saudi Arabia was it chief source of funding?
Leon Feurth: There is certainly a problem in defining the scope of what we need to do. I think the administration has done the right thing. We need to emphasize the need to get at the al Qaeda network and to de-emphasize Osama bin Laden as such. We do need to find him, but it is the network that gives him his significance. So far, so good. But the administration has already had to narrow its rhetoric. At the beginning, it said that we would attack terrorism everywhere. It narrowed this to an attack on terrorist organization with a global reach, which means we must now differentiate between home-grown local groups and parts of global networks that are locally based. That will be extremely hard to do.
The question about Saudi Arabia is very tough. Should we discover such a connection, it would be necessary for the Saudis to choose definitively to end any form of ambiguity in their stance.
Evanston, Ill.:
What happens next? We bomb for say one or two more weeks and then what? We install a new govt. to usurp the Taliban. Then what? We commit troops to Afgahnistan, then to a fragile Pakistan, then to... Can this ever end with negotiations, where various sides can all take away some semblance of gain?
Leon Feurth: Eventually, we may reach an outcome that feels like peace and security. But don't count on it happening very fast. For some time to come, security will depend on our ability to adapt our tactics faster than terrorists can, and to keep them sufficiently engaged in the problem of escaping us, so that they do not have time to bring major new attacks to the point of fruition. In time, if we succeed in disrupting these networks and neutralizing the leadership, the sense of threat might legitimately abate.
Lakewood, N.J.:
Being that Syria and Iran are still in the official list of terrorist backing countries, how can they be included in the U.S.-led alliance, Is there a brand of terrorism that is acceptable and another that is not?
Thanks.
Leon Feurth: We have now entered a time of great moral ambiguity. Sept. 11 shows us that threats to the United States can be massive. We will not have the luxury of rigorously avoiding cooperation from governments we do not trust when that cooperation may make a life-or-death difference for Americans at home. That having been said, the question correctly identifies the Achilles heel of this coalition, namely for the sake of universality, it embraces such a range of interests and behavior that maintaining a coherence will always be a major challenge.
By the way, I am not aware that we have brought Iran into this coalition, nor do I believe that Syria is in it, although we have normal diplomatic relations and communications with the government of Syria.
Alexandria, Va.:
To start, may I thank you and The Post for providing this forum.
I am very sorry about the civilian casualties in Afghanistan. But how in the world did we ever create the impression they could be avoided? An aerial war is messy that way -- and even a land war, as Vietnam taught us. And how did the world lose track of the fact that it was CIVILIANS who died on Sept. 11? Aren't we (the U.S.) creating the wrong expectations among both Afghans and the world at large? Isn't it better to say "we don't want civilians dead, but many many many are likely to die, we regret it, and we're going ahead anyway?"
Leon Feurth: In my opinion, yes. I am sure that we are in fact doing everything humanly possible to diminish the number of civilian casualties. From personal experience in the last administration, I know how much effort goes into analyzing the match between targets and weapons in order to accomplish this. But we have 6,000 deaths in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, rounding off the numbers, and an absolutely clear and legitimate right to self defense. We have repeatedly warned the Taliban government that there would be consequences for which we would hold them accountable. And consequences there must be, or we are out of business as a great power. No other country would simultaneously go to such lengths to spare innocent life, given the provocation we have experienced, including a massive effort to succor refugees with air dropped food and medicine.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
Stay tuned to Live Online:
Howard
Kurtz: Media Backtalk at Noon EDT
Post
Magazine: "You Can't Eat Art" at 1 p.m. EDT
Classical
Music Forum at 1 p.m. EDT
Travel
Talk at 2 p.m. EDT
America
at War: Humanitarian Aid at 2 p.m. EDT
Advice:
Carolyn Hax at 3 p.m. EDT
Astrologer
Charlene Lichtenstein at 6 p.m. EDT
Live Online Special Coverage: America
At War
Did you know that you can follow more than one Live Online discussion at
the same time? Just open another browser window and toggle back and
forth between discussions! And, if you miss one, catch up with the Live
Online transcripts.
Keep up with the latest in news, sports, politics and entertainment with
washingtonpost.com
e-mail newsletters.
NEW! Personalize your Post with mywashingtonpost.com.
Get customized news, traffic, weather and more.
|
|
© Copyright 2001 The Washington Post Company | 
