Brilliant Essay by John Robbins, part 1

Thu, 8 Nov 2001 10:11:06 EST

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TERROR, LOVE, AND THE STATE OF THE WORLD
John Robbins

When there is as much terror afoot as there has been since September 11th, it 
is hard to see how love might prevail. This is how it is with us human beings 
when we are afraid: We contract.  Our breathing becomes shallow and 
constricted. Concerns for our immediate survival push everything else out of 
the picture. In the throes of terror, our thinking is narrowed and 
short-term. The world is divided into two kinds of people, those who are 
threats and those who can help us defend against the threat. Everyone else is 
seen as irrelevant, and might as well not exist. All our attention is focused 
on protecting ourselves from the immediate danger. Our thoughts become 
dominated by "fight or flight," triggering the reptilian part of our brain to 
take over. If we can't successfully flee, then we must fight. It's kill or be 
killed. Nothing else matters. That's the mindset of terror.

That's what fear does to us. It's a state of consciousness that's been 
widespread in our nation since the horrifying and tragic attacks of September 
11th. In Time magazine's special issue about the terrorist attacks, the 
concluding essay was titled, "The Case for Rage and Retribution." The author 
of this piece, frequent Time contributor Lance Morrow, called for "hatred," 
and "a policy of focused brutality." He was far from alone in speaking of the 
virtues of rage and retaliation. On Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly said "the 
U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble - the airport, the power 
plants, their water facilities and the roads." As far as the civilian 
population of Afghanistan, O'Reilly said, "If they don't rise up against this 
criminal government, they starve, period." Calling for the U.S. to massively 
attack not only Afghanistan, but also Iraq and Libya, he added, "Let them eat 
sand."Meanwhile, the former executive editor of the New York Times, A. M. 
Rosenthal, said we should issue ultimatums to six nations, including Iran, 
Syria and the Sudan, and then, if they don't comply to our satisfaction 
within 72 hours, follow up with massive bombing. New York Post columnist 
Steve Dunleavy was also something besides coolheaded, saying "As for cities 
or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." The 
editor of National Review, writing in the Washington Post, concurred, adding, 
"If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part 
of the solution."

With the sounds of such war drums reverberating through the American psyche, 
polls show that 80% support not only the use of ground troops in Afghanistan, 
but also military action against other countries in the Middle East. I am no 
stranger to the desire for revenge. Like President George W.Bush, and most 
likely like you, I have felt it surge through me in recent weeks. 
Contemplating what took place on September 11th, are there any among us who 
have not, at least momentarily, felt their blood boil with outrage, and with 
the demand that these mass murderers and all those behind them pay with an 
eye for an eye? But at such times, when our hearts are filled with outrage 
and our eyes look everywhere for revenge, it is extraordinarily important 
that we remember the awesome truth behind Gandhi's prophetic statement: "An 
eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." 

This is the very truth that the Osama bin Ladens of the world would want us 
to forget. They would like us to be so lost in hysteria that we can't think 
straight. They would like us to be so terrified, so anxious, so belligerent, 
that we lose perspective and make rash and destructive decisions. If we stay 
within the bubble of our fear, then the bin Ladens of the world will have 
won. Sometimes we need to take a very long, very slow, and very deep breath, 
to restore our mental balance and ability to function with clarity. There is 
a difference between enraged action and wise, effective response.

Of course we should find the people and organizations responsible for the 
attacks of September 11th, and the subsequent anthrax mailings, and any other 
attempts that might yet be made to terrorize our nation. We should find them, 
destroy their networks, and bring them to justice. By no means should we 
tolerate or excuse their actions, much less allow them to continue. These are 
people not the slightest bit interested in giving peace a chance. The 
possibility that they might acquire and use nuclear weapons is unfortunately 
all too real. If we fail to track them down and uproot them, we may find 
ourselves in even worse shoes than the European who wrote, after World War 
II, "We who live beneath a sky still streaked with the smoke of crematoria 
have paid a high price to find out that evil is really evil."

But as we work to uproot the terrorists and their networks, we must be 
careful to do so without escalating the cycle of violence, and without 
causing the deaths of even more innocent people, for this would only deepen 
the anger and rage already extant in our world. Burning down the haystack is 
not the best way to find the needle, especially when, in the effort, you 
might set the barn, and the whole world, on fire. We must bring those 
responsible to justice without jeopardizing our ability to create a world 
where terrorism won't take root, a world where criminal psychopaths find no 
followers, a world where hatred has no lure.

This is no small task, but it is the task before us. Our leaders are wise in 
working to form a multinational coalition to fight terrorism. But this should 
not be merely a coalition of countries who allow the U.S. military the use of 
their airspace, or the use of their airports, or provide other military 
support. No coalition to defeat terrorism can be ultimately successful unless 
it is also a coalition of countries joining together to build a peaceful, 
just and prosperous world. Our coalition to defeat terrorism will do only 
half of its job if it merely seeks to defeat those who are responsible for 
the attacks of September 11th. It must also work to build a world of 
international cooperation, a world where no part of the greater human family 
is left out or marginalized. Approximately 6,000 people perished in the 
September 11th attacks. Our nation reels from that despicable brutality. But 
those who died from the attacks on that tragic day were not alone. On 
September 11th, 35,000 children worldwide died of hunger. A similar number of 
children died on September 12th, and again on the 13th, and on every single 
day since then. Meanwhile, we in the U.S. feed 80% of our grain harvest to 
livestock so that a people whose cholesterol levels are too high can have 
cheap meat. To advance human security and control terrorism, we must not only 
find the brutality of the September 11th attacks to be totally intolerable. 
We must also find intolerable that one billion people worldwide struggle to 
survive on $1 a day, that more than one billion people lack access to safe 
drinking water, and that 3 billion people have inadequate access to 
sanitation.

The presence of such dire poverty is an insult to human dignity and would be 
deplorable enough. But today, with worldwide telecommunications making the 
rising inequality between a rich, powerful and imposing West and the rest of 
the world visible to all, its continued existence can only spur those who 
have no prospect of a better life to previously unheard of levels of despair 
and rage. In a time when a handful of desperate and suicidal people can 
devastate the most militarily powerful nation in the history of humankind, 
any coalition dedicated to defeating terrorism must also be a coalition 
dedicated to the goal of bringing justice and prosperity to the poor and 
dispossessed. If we are serious about stopping terrorism, then our goal must 
be to reduce the level of pollution, fear, and poverty in the world. If this 
is truly our goal, and if we devote our actions and resources to its 
accomplishment, the support for the bin Ladens of the world will inexorably 
evaporate. People who would have otherwise sided with the terrorists will be 
clamoring to tell us who and where they are, and to help us find and defeat 
them.

This goal is too costly, many say. But this is not true. The cost of our 
initial military response will easily top $100 billion (on top of our already 
enormous annual defense budget of $342 billion). What could we accomplish if 
we spent even a small fraction of that much on programs to alleviate human 
suffering? In 1998, the United Nations Development Program estimated that it 
would cost an additional $9 billion (above current expenditures) to provide 
clean water and sanitation for everyone on earth. It would cost an additional 
$12 billion, they said, to cover reproductive health services for all women 
worldwide. Another $13 billion would be enough not only to give every person 
on Earth enough food to eat but also basic health care. An additional $6 
billion could provide basic education for all. These are large numbers, but 
combined they add up to $40 billion - only one fifth as much as the $200 
billion the U.S. government agreed in October 2001 to pay Lockheed to build 
new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets.

Our government leaders have not hesitated to build an international coalition 
and to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to defeat those who launched the 
attacks of September 11th. What if we were equally as dedicated to building 
an international coalition to eradicate hunger, to provide clean water, to 
defeat infectious disease, to provide adequate jobs, to combat illiteracy, 
and to end homelessness? What if we understood that, today, there is no such 
thing as national security as long as the basic human needs of large portions 
of humanity are not met? In today's world made transparent by television and 
other telecommunications, any country that attains prosperity unshared by its 
fellow nations can only breed resentment and hatred.

Most immediately, we must address what is rapidly becoming an overwhelming 
humanitarian problem in Afghanistan. This nation has endured decades of 
conflict. As a result, there are millions of people there who, even before 
our bombing campaign began, were dependent on food aid. Now, they face the 
prospect of imminent starvation. According to United Nations experts, this is 
the most severe humanitarian emergency ever.

The U.S. government has made much of C-17 cargo planes dropping 20,000 food 
packets a day to Afghan civilians. But according to world hunger relief 
organizations active in Afghanistan such as Oxfam, the program has been a 
dismal failure. The president of one of the world's most prestigious aid 
organizations, Doctors Without Borders, speaking from Islamabad, deplored the 
program as so much "PR." The airdrops, he said, are a huge waste of money. 
The packages, containing enough to feed an adult for a day, land all over the 
place, with no guarantee that they will be retrieved. Many land in the midst 
of landmines. And the amount being dropped is insignificant is a country 
where seven or eight million people are in danger of starvation. The money 
($25 million according to U.S. government sources) would be far better spent 
provisioning the regular aid convoys already in action.

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<HTML>TERROR, LOVE, AND THE STATE OF THE WORLD
 John Robbins
 
 When there is as much terror afoot as there has been since September 11th, it is hard to see how love might prevail. This is how it is with us human beings when we are afraid: We contract. &nbsp;Our breathing becomes shallow and constricted. Concerns for our immediate survival push everything else out of the picture. In the throes of terror, our thinking is narrowed and short-term. The world is divided into two kinds of people, those who are threats and those who can help us defend against the threat. Everyone else is seen as irrelevant, and might as well not exist. All our attention is focused on protecting ourselves from the immediate danger. Our thoughts become dominated by "fight or flight," triggering the reptilian part of our brain to take over. If we can't successfully flee, then we must fight. It's kill or be killed. Nothing else matters. That's the mindset of terror.
 
 That's what fear does to us. It's a state of consciousness that's been widespread in our nation since the horrifying and tragic attacks of September 11th. In Time magazine's special issue about the terrorist attacks, the concluding essay was titled, "The Case for Rage and Retribution." The author of this piece, frequent Time contributor Lance Morrow, called for "hatred," and "a policy of focused brutality." He was far from alone in speaking of the virtues of rage and retaliation. On Fox News Channel, Bill O'Reilly said "the U.S. should bomb the Afghan infrastructure to rubble - the airport, the power plants, their water facilities and the roads." As far as the civilian population of Afghanistan, O'Reilly said, "If they don't rise up against this criminal government, they starve, period." Calling for the U.S. to massively attack not only Afghanistan, but also Iraq and Libya, he added, "Let them eat sand."Meanwhile, the former executive editor of the New York Times, A. M. Rosenthal, said we should issue ultimatums to six nations, including Iran, Syria and the Sudan, and then, if they don't comply to our satisfaction within 72 hours, follow up with massive bombing. New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy was also something besides coolheaded, saying "As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." The editor of National Review, writing in the Washington Post, concurred, adding, "If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution."
 
 With the sounds of such war drums reverberating through the American psyche, polls show that 80% support not only the use of ground troops in Afghanistan, but also military action against other countries in the Middle East. I am no stranger to the desire for revenge. Like President George W.Bush, and most likely like you, I have felt it surge through me in recent weeks. Contemplating what took place on September 11th, are there any among us who have not, at least momentarily, felt their blood boil with outrage, and with the demand that these mass murderers and all those behind them pay with an eye for an eye? But at such times, when our hearts are filled with outrage and our eyes look everywhere for revenge, it is extraordinarily important that we remember the awesome truth behind Gandhi's prophetic statement: "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." 
 
 This is the very truth that the Osama bin Ladens of the world would want us to forget. They would like us to be so lost in hysteria that we can't think straight. They would like us to be so terrified, so anxious, so belligerent, that we lose perspective and make rash and destructive decisions. If we stay within the bubble of our fear, then the bin Ladens of the world will have won. Sometimes we need to take a very long, very slow, and very deep breath, to restore our mental balance and ability to function with clarity. There is a difference between enraged action and wise, effective response.
 
 Of course we should find the people and organizations responsible for the attacks of September 11th, and the subsequent anthrax mailings, and any other attempts that might yet be made to terrorize our nation. We should find them, destroy their networks, and bring them to justice. By no means should we tolerate or excuse their actions, much less allow them to continue. These are people not the slightest bit interested in giving peace a chance. The possibility that they might acquire and use nuclear weapons is unfortunately all too real. If we fail to track them down and uproot them, we may find ourselves in even worse shoes than the European who wrote, after World War II, "We who live beneath a sky still streaked with the smoke of crematoria have paid a high price to find out that evil is really evil."
 
 But as we work to uproot the terrorists and their networks, we must be careful to do so without escalating the cycle of violence, and without causing the deaths of even more innocent people, for this would only deepen the anger and rage already extant in our world. Burning down the haystack is not the best way to find the needle, especially when, in the effort, you might set the barn, and the whole world, on fire. We must bring those responsible to justice without jeopardizing our ability to create a world where terrorism won't take root, a world where criminal psychopaths find no followers, a world where hatred has no lure.
 
 This is no small task, but it is the task before us. Our leaders are wise in working to form a multinational coalition to fight terrorism. But this should not be merely a coalition of countries who allow the U.S. military the use of their airspace, or the use of their airports, or provide other military support. No coalition to defeat terrorism can be ultimately successful unless it is also a coalition of countries joining together to build a peaceful, just and prosperous world. Our coalition to defeat terrorism will do only half of its job if it merely seeks to defeat those who are responsible for the attacks of September 11th. It must also work to build a world of international cooperation, a world where no part of the greater human family is left out or marginalized. Approximately 6,000 people perished in the September 11th attacks. Our nation reels from that despicable brutality. But those who died from the attacks on that tragic day were not alone. On September 11th, 35,000 children worldwide died of hunger. A similar number of children died on September 12th, and again on the 13th, and on every single day since then. Meanwhile, we in the U.S. feed 80% of our grain harvest to livestock so that a people whose cholesterol levels are too high can have cheap meat. To advance human security and control terrorism, we must not only find the brutality of the September 11th attacks to be totally intolerable. We must also find intolerable that one billion people worldwide struggle to survive on $1 a day, that more than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and that 3 billion people have inadequate access to sanitation.
 
 The presence of such dire poverty is an insult to human dignity and would be deplorable enough. But today, with worldwide telecommunications making the rising inequality between a rich, powerful and imposing West and the rest of the world visible to all, its continued existence can only spur those who have no prospect of a better life to previously unheard of levels of despair and rage. In a time when a handful of desperate and suicidal people can devastate the most militarily powerful nation in the history of humankind, any coalition dedicated to defeating terrorism must also be a coalition dedicated to the goal of bringing justice and prosperity to the poor and dispossessed. If we are serious about stopping terrorism, then our goal must be to reduce the level of pollution, fear, and poverty in the world. If this is truly our goal, and if we devote our actions and resources to its accomplishment, the support for the bin Ladens of the world will inexorably evaporate. People who would have otherwise sided with the terrorists will be clamoring to tell us who and where they are, and to help us find and defeat them.
 
 This goal is too costly, many say. But this is not true. The cost of our initial military response will easily top $100 billion (on top of our already enormous annual defense budget of $342 billion). What could we accomplish if we spent even a small fraction of that much on programs to alleviate human suffering? In 1998, the United Nations Development Program estimated that it would cost an additional $9 billion (above current expenditures) to provide clean water and sanitation for everyone on earth. It would cost an additional $12 billion, they said, to cover reproductive health services for all women worldwide. Another $13 billion would be enough not only to give every person on Earth enough food to eat but also basic health care. An additional $6 billion could provide basic education for all. These are large numbers, but combined they add up to $40 billion - only one fifth as much as the $200 billion the U.S. government agreed in October 2001 to pay Lockheed to build new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets.
 
 Our government leaders have not hesitated to build an international coalition and to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to defeat those who launched the attacks of September 11th. What if we were equally as dedicated to building an international coalition to eradicate hunger, to provide clean water, to defeat infectious disease, to provide adequate jobs, to combat illiteracy, and to end homelessness? What if we understood that, today, there is no such thing as national security as long as the basic human needs of large portions of humanity are not met? In today's world made transparent by television and other telecommunications, any country that attains prosperity unshared by its fellow nations can only breed resentment and hatred.
 
 Most immediately, we must address what is rapidly becoming an overwhelming humanitarian problem in Afghanistan. This nation has endured decades of conflict. As a result, there are millions of people there who, even before our bombing campaign began, were dependent on food aid. Now, they face the prospect of imminent starvation. According to United Nations experts, this is the most severe humanitarian emergency ever.
 
 The U.S. government has made much of C-17 cargo planes dropping 20,000 food packets a day to Afghan civilians. But according to world hunger relief organizations active in Afghanistan such as Oxfam, the program has been a dismal failure. The president of one of the world's most prestigious aid organizations, Doctors Without Borders, speaking from Islamabad, deplored the program as so much "PR." The airdrops, he said, are a huge waste of money. The packages, containing enough to feed an adult for a day, land all over the place, with no guarantee that they will be retrieved. Many land in the midst of landmines. And the amount being dropped is insignificant is a country where seven or eight million people are in danger of starvation. The money ($25 million according to U.S. government sources) would be far better spent provisioning the regular aid convoys already in action.
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