Subject: Bulletin 01-09-19: Terror-DC Buzz Date: 9/19/01 8:30 PM Received: 9/19/01 8:39 PM From: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com To: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute Benjamin C. Works, Executive Director 1515 Jeff Davis Hwy #408 * Arlington, VA 22202 703 415-1191; www.siri-us.com; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil-- Strategic Issues Today To Unsubscribe, send a terse e-message to benworks@aol.com September 19, 2001 Bulletin: Operation Infinite Justice Note: Mr. Works will be a guest on the WLIW-PBS program "Face Off," with hosts Bob McMillan and Larry Levy, to Air in the NYC area Thursday evening at 7:30PM and again on Sunday at Noon. The station-show is on most New York City area cable TV. Note: These bulletins are less formal explorations of issues and gossip of the day and are less formal than SIT-REPS. Thus, bulletins are stored at the website, but not displayed as "the latest baseline report." GW Hunt "We don't want to have to fight, c. 1829-1904 but by jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, We've got the men, We've got the money, too." - From a popular music hall song by George William Hunt, 1878 * The phrase `by jingo' had been used earlier by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74) and by Thomas Hood (1799-1845) Appropriately to some readers, the term "Jingoist" arose in Britain during the Serbian-Balkan-Cyprus crisis of 1878. That led to the Congress of Berlin and Benjamin D'Israeli's immortal phrase "peace with honor," that backfired when recycled by Neville Chamberlain (1938) and Richard Nixon (c. 1971). 1, Troop Movements: The USS Teddy Roosevelt aircraft carrier task force left Norfolk Virginia for the Arabian Gulf region today. The US government also announced that it was sending about 100 US Air Force aircraft and support personnel into the Central Command Theater of Operations. These include aerial tankers, fighter aircraft and support aircraft. Marine amphibious units may also be en route. These are, at these levels, contingency deployments to prepare to counter possible lunges from potential opponents. "Speak softly, and carry a big stick," Teddy Roosevelt observed in 1903. 2. Osama and Taliban: Readers should understand that Taliban represents the nominal government and ideological base of this political-religious movement, but Osama is the de facto chief of staff of Afghanistan's armed forces. The game of describing Osama as a "guest" is disingenuous, and meant only for credibility among poorly educated Muslim populations. Osama controls the guns and everybody in Kabul and Islamabad (Pakistan) understands that. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the "spiritual leader" of Taliban, is the President, but in this case, the top general is in effect, also the Prime Minister, in fact. Taliban is ugly and evil because, instead of leading people to wisdom, enlightenment and growth; it seeks to impose its interpretation of "Truth." --Impose. Taliban is, by imposition of its orthodox view of "Life," a Tyranny. The Taliban interpretation ignores, "liberty and the pursuit of happiness;" vital elements of all our fundamental rights. 3. Strobe Talbott's back-spin: CNN has largely given its pundit coverage over to the Clintonista alumni. Tonight, Yale alumni, Strobe Talbott (former Clinton deputy secretary of State and a Yale graduate) was caught in a naked misrepresentation of back-spin (re-writing facts) by the team at FoxNews. It seems that during a weekend discussion of the crisis at Yale, Talbott characterized the airline terrorists as the poor and ignorant --the desperate. As SIRIUS discussed in yesterday's bulletin, nothing could be further from the truth. The hijackers were a combination of middle class muscle-men and upper class pilots. The poor and desperate of Pakistan and Afghanistan are the foot soldiers of Taliban's Afghan army; the brighter among them are indoctrinated in the Taliban universities as mullahs --Islamist Commissars. Talbott was a voluble coward during the Reagan-Bush years (1981-93), regarding the Soviet Union and nuclear threats, as a senior correspondent for Time Magazine. He has returned to his practice of fear-mongering and mis-analysis. As the go-to-guy for Russian mollification policy, Talbott was instrumental in bungling reform, while encouraging corruption in Moscow. He would do well to withdraw, for eternity, from the public arena. That leads to another Ivy League tidbit - Harvard v. Yale: Yesterday, I was asked a couple of times to disprove an Internet rumor that Osama had been educated at Yale, Mr. Bush's university. It turns out (in a Jane's Intelligence biography on the Internet) that Osama attended the University of Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia. But Tuesday evening a story broke that several of Osama's siblings have attended Harvard and that the bin Laden family has donated $1 million each to Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Design (partly an architecture school). Osama's brothers and sisters were spirited out of their deluxe condominiums in the days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. 4. Chechens: SIRIUS is aware that though the audit trail will lead from Osama to the KLA and to the Chechen terrorists of the Caucasus; that there are more civilized Chechen clans and communities and clans in Turkey and Jordan. The core cadres of Jordan's Royal Guard and Army are Chechens from the better families. People at Fort Bragg, NC, among others, know this fact. 5. "I told you so" and "Jingoists:" Aside from upset Libertarians and paranoid conspiracy theorists, there are two other important elements flooding the media and internet with e-junk: "I told you so" opponents of the NATO air war against Yugoslavia, and "Jingoists" who want to nuke Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc, "into the Stone Age." "Grow up!" There is no way to re-direct testosterone-advantaged Jingoists like Bill O'Reilly of FoxNews. There is nothing to nuke in Afghanistan, nothing to return to the Stone Age, since the entire country has already devolved to that low estate. These benighted people need relief, not futile infusions of guided ordinance. There is a way to sober down the "I told you so" crowd. American Serbs died in the World Trade Center along with 96 Russians, 200 Pakistanis, and people from at least 62 countries. We know the Osama audit trail leads into Albania and Bosnia. Some of the Bush people know that, too. The respected documentary producer of "The Avoidable War," George Bogdanich, is among the more fortunate survivors. The WTC-Pentagon disaster was visited upon the World, not just the USA. The resolution (imperfect as it will be) must come from the World. "Grow up." 5. Washington Buzz: This morning, I went to a large, weekly meeting of leading Libertarian and Conservative groups in Washington. I heard a few interesting things. The meeting is well-known and about 200 people attend. Commonly, public affairs people from the White House, State Dept, Defense Department and senior Capitol Hill staffers give brief, off-the-record remarks on the issues of the day. Policy advocates and think-tank people discuss tax reform, social security reform and other issues. Today the White House confirmed it will no longer refer to the war against Terrorism as a "crusade." That message got through. At the same time, there was a vigorous discussion about how we can protect our individual liberties while attacking terrorism. On Thursday, a broad coalition of Conservatives, Libertarians and Liberals led by the ACLU will hold a press conference to air our views about how Attorney General Ashcroft should limit further encroachments on our internet and telephone rights of free speech. In the hallway, I briefly discussed the need for the President to couch this long campaign as campaigns to "Liberate people from Terrorists." We should be planning to liberate (free) the people of Afghanistan from Osama and from Taliban. This war should be about human liberty, freedom from terror. Freedom to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing less than such a commitment can succeed under the President's proposed "Operation Infinite Justice." What a title for a combat operation; typical of the "wear our hearts on our sleeve" addiction to simplistic symbolism over fundamental emblem-ism or adherence to principles and philosophy. "Infinite" and just retribution to terrorists and tyrants is one fine commitment, but positive justice for oppressed and distressed peoples is an even finer thing. But Infinite justice cannot be achieved by topical air strikes, limited commando raids and the encroachment of anti-terror government authorities on basic communication and commerce. --Judging from internet traffic that floods my mail box every day, I do not know who is more upset about President Bush's half-disclosed campaign plans: American libertarians of the "Free Republic" website; the anti-UN legions, conspiracy theorists and Asian minority communities. The basic question asked, is this: Is this more of American Hegemonism and Imperialism as practiced by the Clintons? Is this more global Federalist one-world-ism as suggested by Bush-41's immortal "New World Order?" That dog won't hunt with Americans, with the other UN Security Council permanent members, much less the peoples of the Muslim world. Global Federalism, Hegemonism and our addiction to sensual indulgence is what the world dreads. "All politics is local." Tip O'Neill observed at every opportunity. So too with ethnic loyalties, religious affiliation and every form of bond that binds a community together in common interest. Hegemonism and Imperialism are impossibilities. Global Federalism is an impossibility. The human condition is too wide scattered and at too uneven levels of development to sustain a global homogenization of the human political condition. Fortunately these factors operate against Taliban's ludicrously impossible ambition to erect a homogenized Wahabi-Sunni Islamic empire in the ethnic-sectarian patchwork that is Central Asia. Mr. Bush should make clear that he is working to lead a free coalition-alliance of sovereign, constitutional states to liberate oppressed populations from the tyrants who use terrorism as a routine instrument of policy. Beyond that, these tailored alliances should commit to the re-development of distressed societies. Not "nation-building" as Clinton understood it, but development as Peruvian economist Hernando DeSoto and other Federalists practice it. © Copyright 2001 by Benjamin C. Works - SIRIUS www.siri-us.com Recipients of this report may re-post it, in whole or in part, to Internet web sites and address lists, so long as the copyright notice is included, and "for fair use only."