Despite poll after poll suggesting that the majority of Americans favor war with anyone involved in last Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, Michael Klare, a Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, has been vocal in his belief that the United States should take a very different course of action.
He wrote an article titled “How to Defeat bin Laden” for the Friday edition of salon.com, an on-line news magazine. In the article, he proposed that the US seek out bin Laden and try him as a mass murderer rather than prepare for a conventional war.
“There are many in Washington and around the country who believe that the United States should declare war on bin Laden – along with any governments that have given him assistance of one sort or another,” Klare wrote. “Such action would undoubtedly help restore confidence in the power of the American nation, and provide a degree of satisfaction to those who crave retribution for Tuesday’s horrific attacks. But we must also ask: Will it achieve the goal of eradicating bin Laden’s networks and eliminating the terrorist threat to the United States? There are good reasons to suspect that it will not.”
Klare told The Daily Collegian that conventional warfare “would not be the best way to put this terrorist operation out of business.
“Bin Laden and his supporters are too dispersed, too hidden,” he said. “They will not be struck by bombs. We would be killing a lot of innocent Muslims.”
Instead of attempting to bomb the members of the terrorist operation, Klare suggests that the US “brand them as the world’s worst mass murderers,” similar to the way in which the case of Slobodan Milosevic was handled.
“We should organize a man-hunt, rather than using the military,” he said. “The terrorists will not be deterred by bombing Afghanistan. [That would be seen by them] as proof of the justice of their cause.”
Klare derided the actions of President Bush and his cabinet, saying, “I think the administration has responded irresponsibly and opportunistically.
“Their first job should be to focus on the rescue operation – which,” he notes, “they’ve done – but the most important parts have been done by New York City police and firemen. The second job is to take steps to prevent further attacks, and they’ve done a pretty good job of that.”
But Klare disagrees with the way that Bush’s administration has handled its “third job” – which, he says, is appropriate retaliation. “They’ve been seizing on peoples’ anger to promote their own interests,” he said, “which is very deplorable. They’re going in the direction of an all-out military response that may not succeed.”
Klare teaches a course on international security policy at the University of Massachusetts. He decided to significantly alter the topics covered in the course in order to address some of the issues raised by the attacks.
He maintains that reaction to his views has been mixed. His Salon article drew many responses, some highly positive, some highly negative.
In a letter to the editor of salon.com, a reader by the name of Bill Lindner wrote, “‘Nuking them A-rabs’ is no answer, but let’s not deceive ourselves about what this enemy – anarchy and terrorism – is willing to do. It will take a strong response in the only language they understand. Sadly, Professor Klare seeks ‘peace in our time’ with the monster of our moment.”
“A lot of people are really angry with me,” Klare said, “I think they feel that a police operation is not enough -that the violence against us was so great that we should respond in the same manner. But I don’t think that killing more people is an appropriate response.”
