What kind of 'war'?: A journalist, a diplomat, a foreign-policy expert, and a theologian contemplate our future.
White, Robert E.
Robert E. White The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are an assault not only on the United States but on civilization itself. No set of grievances, no matter how...
...If the Bush administration is to gain the cooperation of the rest of the world, it must create a new international climate...
...The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have ensured a new context for the congressional debate and prospects for this program's defeat are improving...
...NATO has invoked Article 5 which states that an armed attack against one member is an attack against all...
...President George W. Bush has reached out to foreign leaders and his call for cooperation has been answered...
...and a commitment to promote economic opportunity in the poorer nations by investing in programs of education, health, and sustainable development...
...Commonweal 9 September 28,2001...
...multilateral agreement to control and reduce to a minimum nuclear arsenals...
...This can only be accomplished by diplomacy...
...Since then, in the words of political scientist Michael Mandelbaum, "American foreign policy has the shape of a doughnut—lots of peripheral interests but nothing at the center...
...And there are challenges we have largely ignored: Common action to save our global environment...
...an end to the "silent genocide" of third-world famine and plague...
...It is ironic that a terrorist attack against the United States has imposed a multilateral agenda on an administration that has flaunted its unilateralism...
...Even the fifty-seven-member Arab League expressed sympathy...
...The task ahead is to build an international coalition against terrorism...
...It is hard to imagine a more uncomfortable fit...
...We must take away the oxygen which inspires young people to believe that suicide missions are a passport to heaven...
...a ban on exporting arms to third-world countries...
...At a moment when the United States needs wholehearted international cooperation, Star Wars symbolizes the unilateral action which defeats such cooperation...
...An end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the creation of an independent Palestine will not put an end to terrorism, but it is an indispensable start...
...Our defense against terrorism will only work if we regard the September 11 attack as a signal to begin to work with other nations, not apart from them...
...This phantom defense, which experts believe would cost between $150 and $300 billion, is manifestly useless against terrorism...
...An end to threats to abrogate the antiballistic missile treaty, and a new look at the Comprehensive Test Ban, the International Criminal Court, small-arms and germ-warfare agreements would be a good place to start...
...With two-thirds of the Arab population under thirty years of age and with most Arab economies in decline, the Middle East will soon become ungovernable unless the region is stabilized...
...No set of grievances, no matter how deep-seated, can serve to justify these terrible crimes...
...The collapse of the Soviet empire deprived the United States of the lodestar that gave coherence and shape to our foreign policy...
...This means working closely with moderate Arab states by addressing the legitimate grievances of communities from which terrorists are drawn...
...President Vladimir Putin placed Russia alongside the United States in the war against terrorism...
...The problem is that until now the Bush administration has done everything it could to signal its disregard for a stable world order by spurning treaties and making national missile defense the centerpiece of our security policy...
...The United States and its major allies must not only destroy terrorist networks...
...an international commitment to curb exploding population growth...
...Robert E. White, a former United States ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, is president of the Center for International Policy...
Vol. 128 • September 2001 • No. 16
