AUSTIN --- Afghanistan is to nation-building what Afghanistan is
to war -- pretty much the last place on earth you'd choose, if you had any
choice at all. I point this out not to oppose the idea, about which I think
we have no choice, but to underline that the task is hard, long and
incredibly complicated. President Bush has said that from the beginning, but
it cannot be said too often.
There are some signs of what could become a dangerous division
in what has been an unusually unified America since this crisis began, and
they have to do with a class difference in information. To oversimplify,
those who are getting their information from the Internet and/or a broad
range of publications are having conversations with one another that are
radically different from those heard on many radio talk shows. This is more
than the simplistic jingoism that is a constant in American life; this is
simplistic jingoism with a dangerously short attention span. The "let's nuke
'em" crowd is still looking for a short, simple solution, and there just
isn't one. More stark evidence of this is the poll of Pakistanis just
released by Newsweek, and the numbers need to be read carefully: While 51
percent support their government's cooperation with the U.S. during the
crisis, 83 percent are sympathetic to the Taliban, and almost half believe
Israel was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Fortunately for us, bin Laden and the Taliban are taking care of that
theory. I think one of the few mistakes the Bush administration has made so
far in this was to criticize the networks for putting on bin Laden -- we
want everybody to hear him claim credit for those attacks.
While some of us search for the answer to the question, "Why do
they hate us?" the voices on radio talk shows are answering, "Who cares?
Nuke 'em." Those inclined to think that's not a bad plan might keep in mind
the already-classic lead by Barry Bearak of The New York Times: "If there
are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they
ought to know that this nation does not have far to go. This is a
post-apocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden
people." One downside to the short-simple-answer school is that those folks
are going to become extremely frustrated. As others have observed, talk
radio is often not so much a forum for discussion as it is a medium for
venting anger, so perhaps it serves a useful purpose. But it also seems to
foment anger.
In a continuing effort to focus on the practical, I see no
reason not to lay out the evidence against bin Laden. It's being leaked to
the media so widely one can only assume that's a policy. The Taliban are now
saying they will turn bin Laden over to a third party if they see evidence.
We don't want to negotiate? Fine, we don't have to talk to them. We can just
make the information public for everyone, with the exception, obviously, of
shielding investigative tools. The money trail offers insights on the
daunting complexity of what we face. Some of the charitable money we are
questioning, from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, goes to the madrasas --
religious schools of varying quality. Some offer education, some educate
solely for jihad; many of the Taliban are graduates of these schools. The
madrasas, in addition to religious education, provide room and board for the
boys of poor families. In Pakistan, where almost the entirety of the budget
goes to the military and debt service, the madrasas represent almost the
whole of civil society for the poor. When experts talk about building a
civil society, they mean from scratch.
While some of us are talking about how to build a civil society,
achieve energy independence and settle long-standing international disputes,
others are reacting like the waitress in an Austin drinking establishment,
who refused to serve the East Indian guest of a regular patron, repeatedly
calling him a terrorist and insisting that he leave. That's the reaction gap
that concerns me.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
