Online Edition | Washington State University | Pullman, Washington | Friday, September 21, 2001

Perspective
WSU experts offer 
insights into attack
BY ROBERT FRANK, WSU TODAY

The horrific tragedy caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States has produced a tidal wave of news and opinions. Several WSU faculty have significant expertise in fields relating to the issue and offer some opinions and insights worthy of consideration.

OTWIN MARENIN
"The reaction of anger by citizens in the United States calling for strong action and retaliation is to be expected," said Otwin Marenin, chair of Political Science. "Unfortunately, there are a number of distortions in the media’s and many people’s perception of the situation."

Marenin’s area of research and expertise is international policing—including intelligence collection, tracking international terrorists and organizations, and national security.

First, Marenin said, "terrorist activities happen all the time in locations throughout the world. What is different on this occasion is the massive destruction that occurred. That is unprecedented."

Second, he noted, some media spokespeople are contending that the United States has not paid serious attention to terrorism for 30 to 40 years, which is "not accurate. We have vast amounts of information from many intelligence gathering sources."

Marenin agreed that the United States may have "become slack" in its airport security methods, but noted that is far different from not taking the situation seriously.

"We’re at odds with a group of individuals, not a nation with vast amounts of people and resources," Marenin said.

Based on the evidence gathered so far, it is clear that "these terrorists were a small group, using extremely low technology, little more than a handful of men with knives."

The nature of terrorism, he said, is that a small number of individual extremists inflict a maximum amount of disruption and chaos upon their enemies, while trying to achieve their goal or broadcast a message.

Because it is an action carried out by individuals or small groups, it can be done with very little in resources or technology. In this case, he said, it simply required some "long-term planning and coordination and a small group of people who shared a common identity or cause and were willing to kill themselves in the process.

"The notion that we’re at war with some a traditional enemy is simply not accurate."

Suicide terrorism is the hardest to prevent. In the past 15 years, roughly 280 suicide attacks have been recorded around the world, he said. Only two have occurred in the United States.

"The fact that there was a terrorist attack in the United States is not surprising," he said. "The major difference here is that they used commercial airliners as weapons and that they achieved such a massive level of destruction…I think they are as surprised as anyone else at the size of the results that they achieved."

By nature and training, the military is not designed to deal with individual terrorists; it is designed to fight against a large force, he said. As a result, this has to be a policing intelligence response.

"You don’t stop terrorism by killing people, you stop it by prevention and political means. Even if we wipe out the bin Laden group, it will just be replaced by lower-level, possibly more radical people. This situation has revealed the need for an international cooperative policing and intelligence effort."

THOMAS PRESTON
The Sept. 11 attack is going to have a major impact on domestic policies and lifestyles, at least for the near term, said Thomas Preston, associate professor of international relations in the Political Science department. Preston pointed to a tremendous tightening of security for air travel and events with large attendance, access to specific businesses and utilities, and the day-to-day operations of many industries.

"It always struck me as odd that we didn’t have greater airport security in the United States," he said. "I hope the increased security is something that will continue. In many foreign countries, airport security is much more stringent."

One of the biggest U.S. "casualties" in the attack has clearly been the loss of our "sense of invulnerability," he said. In the past, "it (terrorism) was always something that would happen overseas and not here.

"Compared to many publics, particularly those in Europe, Americans tends to be very uninformed, both domestically and internationally," Preston said. "They didn’t really believe that international issues affected them. And many don’t understand what would motivate this kind of hatred and these feelings toward the United States."

This event, combined with others in the recent past, seemed to be causing people to realize that this belief is not true anymore and that "international issues are relevant to their lives."

U.S. citizens have enjoyed tremendous freedoms and conveniences for many years. The policy changes that will result in the wake of the attack, however, will probably decrease those freedoms, Preston said. "Those kinds of conveniences increase your vulnerability to attacks like this. But there will always be a certain degree of vulnerability in the United States because we live in a democracy. We don’t live in a police state."

Like Marenin, he noted that getting bin Laden will not end terrorism or that kind of threat.

"There will be long-term consequences of going after bin Laden, especially if we make him a martyr in that region.

"This whole thing requires a fundamental rethinking of how we view ourselves, our nation and the world," Preston said. "To say we shouldn’t worry about their civilian casualties because they didn’t worry about ours would be foolish. That would create a radical reaction from that part of the world against us and serve only to destabilize many of our moderate Arab allies. I support going after bin Laden and his group, but we need to control the impulse to blindly strike out. We need to do it as carefully as we can."

Preston approved of the U.S. policy to hold other countries accountable when they knowingly provide shelter to terrorists. However, he noted, this creates a future dilemma.

"That means the public needs to be willing to support military action against these nations and risk military casualties," he said. "The public is generally okay with firing cruise missiles from a distance, but there traditionally has been little support beyond this, especially if it meant substantial casualties.

"We’re now looking at more than 5,000 dead in New York. That will mobilize people’s support to take some action, but the public doesn’t really understand how difficult this will be to fight a war in the mountains of Afghanistan."

He pointed to the recent past when the Russians faced off against the rebels in Afghanistan. The Soviet army was there for about 10 years with more than 100,000 troops at nearly any given time, and it completely failed to defeat the same groups (like the Taliban) that we may now have to contend with. This is a tremendous challenge for the White House, Preston said.

"We need realistic expectations of what we can accomplish, how long it will take and how much it will cost. It is not going to be quick or easy, unless these people hand over bin Laden and his followers. But even then, there will be other groups."

Although a solution is difficult, the attempt must be made, Preston said.

For many in the Middle East, the United States is perceived as being interconnected with Israel. To many Arab countries and their publics, striking at the United States is the same as striking at Israel.

By the same token, the governments of Pakistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran can be perceived as aligning with the United States if they cooperate, which can result in intense domestic opposition, retaliation from other Arab countries, and may have consequences for the United States with regard to oil and security.

"You cannot separate these problems from one another," Preston said. "If you pull on one thread, it’s all interconnected. There is not an easy solution. No matter what we do, there will be fallout."

ROBERT STAAB
Despite the common thread that exists between Islamic countries, "we can’t lump all the nations of the Islamic world into one mound," said Robert Staab, an instructor in Middle Eastern history for the Department of History. "They are distinct countries with distinct governments. As a result, each of them may not react in the same way."

Saudi Arabia and Jordan are kingdoms. Egypt is a type of democracy and elects its leaders. Iran is an Islamic republic that has national elections. Each government has its own agenda in the world. Some are more active than others.

"Terrorist attacks have affected everyone in the Middle East," said Staab. "They are watching us very closely to see how we react. They are afraid of being dragged into conflicts as well."

Staab urges Americans to not stereotype people from Arab countries. Middle Eastern people, whether Muslim or Christian, are "usually passive people. They are not terrorists. We often wrongfully associate the term Arab with terrorism."

Muslims living in the United States come from all over the world, including Africa, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Far East. And they could be "second- or third-generation Muslims. African slaves were often Muslim. We often forget that," he said.

"The very fact that we have a mosque here in Pullman lets us know that they (representatives of the Moslem community) have been here for many years. And we should take advantage of that to learn more about their religion. Every religion has a dark side to it, and the terrorists are a very small percentage."

Staab agreed with Preston that Americans need to be more informed about other nations. "More than 1.3 billion people in the world are Islamic, and yet we have such little understanding about them," he said.

Staab also noted that there is a great deal of diversity politically and religiously within the Islamic world and between the Shiite and Sunni factions. About 80 percent of Muslims are Sunnis, and about 15 percent are Shiites. The remainder is a collection of very small sects.

"It is not this great monolithic world that we imagine. Their world is very complex and diversified, and the amount of people who stand for the notion that killing is acceptable is very small."

STEVEN STEHR
Although the terrorist attack was thousands of miles away from Pullman, the impact and ramifications of the tragedy reached deep into the hearts of faculty, staff and students. One person keenly aware of this is Steven Stehr, associate professor of political science who specializes in community disaster recovery and how it impacts public policy.

Until now, most large-scale disasters in the United States have been natural disasters or accidents—hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods, where there is no one to blame, or accidents like the Exxon Valdez and Three-Mile Island. This is different in that it is an all-out attack, masterminded and carried out by a specific group that killed a massive number of people, Stehr said. As a result, the impact on public policies and lifestyles will be much greater.

"I would venture to say that virtually every federal and public agency in the nation is having meetings this week looking at what changes it needs to make in light of what happened, including everyone from the Federal Aviation Administration to the Department of Agriculture," Stehr said. "Still hanging out there is the threat of biological and chemical warfare that could make the effects of this attack look small."

"We need to be careful that we don’t create policies that are worse in some unplanned way," he said, pointing to policies that erupted from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Those policies set up to protect us from similar accidents have created other problems in the shipping industry.

The need to set up new policies to prevent future terrorist attacks will probably lead to "an open struggle between those who now think security is the most important thing and those who see personal freedom as a priority," Stehr said.

An obvious example is the new stringent air travel security rules that will take away the freedom and ease of checking in and boarding a plane quickly. Instead of the process taking 15 minutes, it may now take two hours or more, at least in the near term. In addition, people will not be able to carry knives, nail clippers, laptop computers and most luggage.

"Given the gravity and widespread media coverage of this situation, it sounds like things are not going to go back to normal, as it used to be. As a result, we will have to redefine what normal is," Stehr said. "The three main issues that will need to be balanced in this process are security, freedom and equality."

If the war that has been declared on terrorism is a "protracted effort on several fronts," the process of establishing new public policies and redefining what is normal could go on for years.

Although the damage was great, the physical recovery and rebuilding of structures is not really that complicated, Stehr said. "The psychological recovery and changes are what you have to watch and what will be interesting.

"The university has organized a variety of events and services to help the local community deal with this tragedy. Overall, it is doing well and hitting all the right notes, so to speak. Everyone seems to be dealing with it in their own way. The challenge in the near term is to support ongoing discussions in terms of what has happened and where we go next."