Newsweek columnist talks terrorism
Robert Davis
Photography Editor

     The United States, like a phoenix, rose from the ashes of the Twin Towers after the attacks of Sept. 11.
     Backed by a unified population and a mobilized military, it attacked Afghanistan, the alleged home to the terrorists behind the attacks, and liberated its population from the oppressive rule of the Taliban in the span of a few months.
     With the Afghans liberated and the terrorist group al Qaida's activities disrupted, many Americans think they can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But according to Fareed Zakaria, they are mistaken.
     The War on Terrorism, Zakaria said, is far from over. In, fact, it hasn't even started, he said. The numbers of terrorists who have had training ranges from 30,000 to 70,000, and the sum of arrests by Western governments is only around 4,000, Zakaria said.
     "At the very least, there are tens of thousands of people out there training in some way or another, and we don't know where," he said
     Although the United States has the power to topple a regime in less than six months, it will never succeed unless it can overcome the root of the problem and change the minds of the individuals who wish to attack it.
     Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, attempted to dissect the problem of foreign hatred of America in his speech "Why do They Hate Us? America in a New World" Nov. 19 at the University Center.
     In a speech that focused on the identification of the problem, he also posited several solutions that involved warfare on the political and cultural front as well as the battlefield.
     Digressing from the current crisis, Zakaria explained its roots, going back 50 years. The Middle East, he said, was on the verge of modernization to the standards of the Western world when the plans were derailed.
     "[Modernization] didn't happen for a very simple reason, three letters really: oil," he said. "Along comes the oil price boom, when oil prices have quadrupled, and all of a sudden, societies of the Middle East realize they are geese sitting on top of golden eggs."
     These countries did not need to invest the hard work and labor into developing their countries, and instead merely profited from the sale of oil. He said this economic failure also resulted in a political failure that

Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, spoke at the University Center Nov. 19 Photo by Robert Davis

took the power of government from the people.
     "The king of Saudi Arabia says to his people, 'I will ask very little of you, and I will give very little to you," he said. "In a sense, it is the inverse of the American slogan. No taxation, but no representation either."
     The world of the Middle East was essentially sealed off from the rest of the world when economic and political modernization stopped, Zakaria said. As the world changed drastically in the 1980s and 1990s with the shift to liberal democracies and the demise of the Soviet Union, the Middle East was untouched.
     This lack of change frustrated the population, Zakaria said. Since the government had become fused with religious extremism, there are no political parties, no editorials in newspapers and very little free speech anywhere outside of the mosque.
     "So what has happened is all the political opposition, all the social frustration, all the anger in these societies has been channeled into the one place that has been free and open for discourse, and that is the mosque," he said.
     Religion and politics are very strange bedfellows, Zakaria said, because the basis of religion is obedience, and politics is about compromise. Couple these "winner-take-all" conservative ideas with the liberal nature of the United States, and the reason behind the hate becomes apparent.
     "People say they hate us because of our freedoms, but Italy and Sweden are free societies as well. They hate the United States because of its power," he said. "They hate it because it is the master of this modern world, a world breathing in democracy and globalization, and it is so easily able to navigate this world."
     With the problem identified, Zakaria moved on to suggest a possible solution with military, political and ideological components.
     The military solution, first and foremost, is to deal with those who intend to cause immediate harm.
     "There is no point spending a lot of time arguing with them. You have to get to them first, disrupt them and possibly even kill them. It is as simple as that," he said.
     This solution cannot be the final solution and it also cannot come without some sacrifices on behalf of the American people, namely some civil liberties.
     "It will not be business as usual any longer," Zakaria said.
     For the political strategy to work, he said, the United States must go to the global community for help. From coalition building to global standards for shipping goods, America cannot take on the terrorists alone and expect to win easily.
     The final ideological solution is possibly the most difficult, Zakaria said. It can be done, however, and the Cold War is proof of the fruits of struggle.
     "Think about the Cold War," he said. "It was the sustained effort of Western democracies to discredit communism, and similarly, it would have to be a sustained effort to discredit the voices of extremism."
     Although there hasn't been the "second dreaded attack" yet, Zakaria said, the risks are numerous. Information on how to build a "dirty bomb," which spreads crude radioactive material upon detonation, or how to utilize biological warfare is readily available on the Internet. The ease by which information flows is both beneficial and dangerous, he said.
     "The Harvard Business school taught during the 1990s a series of cases in which a small, nimble company that was well-networked, knew how to use information technologies and knew how to use a vast system that was exploited by the world economy was able to overturn the goliath of its field," he said. "The business world should really think about writing a case about al Qaida."
     In the end, Zakaria posed the ultimate question: How do you deter someone who wants to die?
     "What you have to deter, in the final analysis, is that young Arab man who is deciding whether or not his life is so needless in this world that he wishes to arrive so quickly, and so destructively in the next," Zakaria said. "To do that, you have to get inside his mind and get into that debate."
     "If you don't, the future of our security and our children's security will be complicated," he said.

     Photography Editor Robert Davis can be reached via e-mail at spinnakerphoto@yahoo.com.