For the defeat of terrorism

By ABDULLAHI AN-NA`IM - Special to The Kansas City Star
Date: 09/20/01 22:15

The ultimate object of terrorism, in all its forms and from whatever
source it may come, is to diminish our humanity and reduce us to its
own level of barbarity.

To defeat that evil purpose and enact our categorical condemnation of
the horrendous atrocities of Sept. 11, we must reflect on our own
enlightened and humane best interest in the face of such grotesque
behavior.

Since simple retaliation will only feed into a spiral of mutual
destruction, we have to strive to understand and address possible
causes of what appears to be utterly senseless carnage, however alien
and incomprehensible that may be to our own rationality.

In my view, the profound moral and political failure of American
policy in the Middle East is the most serious and direct threat to the
same economic and security interests that are cited in rationalization
of that policy.

To put it bluntly, unprincipled and unjust foreign policy undermines
the business and security interests of the United States everywhere.
That self-defeating policy will end only when the American public
cares enough to hold its own government accountable for its actions
abroad as it is at home.

The worst failure of the U.S. policy in the Middle East is its
unconditional and uncritical support of whatever Israel does. Israeli
armed forces killed several thousand during its illegal invasion and
occupation of parts of Lebanon for 18 years.

Yet the United States blocked every international effort to force
Israel to withdraw, let alone holding its leaders accountable for
those crimes. In contrast, the United States and its Western allies
continue to punish the people of Iraq for the sins of their
oppressors, who did to Kuwait what Israel was still doing to Lebanon
at the time.

Another failure is the unqualified support of the corrupt and
oppressive regime of Saudi Arabia that is the primary source of
militant fundamentalism in the Muslim world.

Recall that U.S. suppression of the liberal democratic process in Iran
in 1952 and support for the shah's regime as a Cold War strategy begot
Ayatollah Khomeini by 1979.

Our condemnation of the horrendous atrocities of Sept. 11 can only be
vindicated by breaking the chain of caution of international
terrorism, instead of launching our own terrorist retaliation.

American business and security can be permanently secured only through
promoting the rule of law and international cooperation to combat all
evil in the world, whatever its source and alleged justification may
be.

Failure to hold our own government accountable for its actions abroad
makes us as bigoted and chauvinistic as the terrorists we condemn and
seek to punish.

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im is the Charles Howard Candler professor of
law at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta. He wrote this
article for The Kansas City Star. He was to speak Thursday at the
University of Kansas by invitation of the African Studies Center.

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/opinion.pat,opinion/3accfdd6.920.html