AUSTIN -- So far, so good. Way to go, military.
It has turned out, in previous campaigns of oxymoronic "surgical
bombing," that initial reports exaggerated both the effectiveness and the
accuracy of our efforts. But as of the bombing of Yugoslavia (with the
exception of the unfortunate "ooops" over the Chinese Embassy), we seem to
be getting better at the ghastly art.
The pathetic shortage of what the military calls "first class
targets" in Afghanistan was underlined in the first wave of bombing designed
to take out the Taliban's air weapons -- according to one British expert,
they have or had 12 planes. Our announced plan of clearing the skies so we
can bomb them with butter seems to me exceptionally shrewd, although we have
the unfortunate precedent of a humanitarian mission turned sour from
Somalia.
So the military is out there doing its thing, in its obscure
language Pentagonese, while some of us nail-biters at home have gotten into
a bitter argument. The pundit class seems to have fallen into Manichean
error -- that's the one where everything gets oversimplified into good/bad,
dark/light. Among our more excitable brethren, a few have concluded that
anyone who advocates an Israeli-Palestinian accord is playing Osama bin
Laden's game and is the moral equivalent of the 1930s appeasers of Hitler.
Get a grip.
Bin Laden is so appalling that if he were in favor of sunshine
and laughter, one would be tempted to vote for dark and gloom. But that
would give him control. There is a mild parallel to this situation in G.W.
Bush's foreign policy prior to Sept. 11. As near anyone could tell, the sole
unifying theme of his policies was to be for whatever Bill Clinton had been
against and vice versa.
Clinton pushed mightily for a settlement between Israel and the
Palestinians, therefore Bush would not push. Clinton was for the Kyoto
Accord and various international treaties banning biological weapons, small
arms trade, etc., therefore Bush was opposed to same. And so it went. One
unhappy consequence of this unthinking pattern was that we seriously ticked
off the European allies. Their generous support post-Sept. 11 is especially
commendable given that they were Not Happy Campers to that time.
The point is that policy needs to be judged not on who is for it
or against it -- for all we know Saddam Hussein may be right about
something -- but whether the policy works. We are the shrewd, pragmatic
Yankees, remember? It is in our interest and the interest of Israel and the
Palestinians to get that situation settled, so let's get it. Who cares if
Bin Laden is for it, too? (He's not, of course. He wants to destroy Israel
and the Wes. No one is appeasing Bin Laden -- you can't appease a fanatic.)
I think those who are flying into the boughs of overwrought rhetoric at the
idea that something we might do could somehow be construed as "giving in" to
Bin Laden are ceding the man entirely too much control over our decisions.
Why stick with a dumb policy because of him?
The main reason we want to try something new as regards both the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraqi sanctions is because what we're
doing now clearly doesn't work worth squat. There is no percentage in
letting a bad situation get worse. Pragmatism may not be a great moral
philosophy, but it is useful. Liberals, as usual, are accused of being
naive, warm-and-fuzzy peaceniks (when not being labeled Hitler-appeasers).
To use a homely phrase, someone here doesn't have his thinking cap on
straight, and as far as I can see, the only actual thinking, rather than
reacting, is being done on the left.
Come on, let's get some new ideas in here. Or even some good old
ones. I go back to the much-agreed point that the most successful American
foreign policy of the 20th century was the Marshall Plan. The United States
helped rebuild Europe with that plan, including Germany -- a place of which
we then had no reason to be fond. But it was very smart of us.
Looking way down the line, we need to rethink our role in the
arms traffic. According to a congressional study published in August, world
arms sales to developing countries rose by 8 percent last year, with the
United States dominating the market. Weapons sales came to $36.9 billion,
with the United States accounting for about half, $18.6 billion. We've been
shot at with our own weapons all over the world. We armed the mujahedeen
(different war, different world), but we didn't stick around to help glue
the pieces back together when it was over. Bush said recently, "We're not
into nation-building," as though it were a venereal disease.
The question is, would it work? We all have 20-20 hindsight on
Afghanistan now -- better that than this.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
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