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Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded
Opinion" pages.
We invite you to browse our index
of outstanding gold-based commentary.
(Back to Holger Jensen Index)
While we find Mr. Jensen's columns particularly informative with respect to foreign affairs, his opinions do not necessarily represent those of Centennial Precious Metals, USAGOLD, its management and clientele.
INSIDE FOREIGN AFFAIRS
In a changing world, a new
way to wage war
by Holger Jensen, International Editor
New war, new tactics.
We've been getting the message from various administration officials since Sept. 11, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spelled out most clearly what President Bush will be talking about when he addresses the nation on "homeland defense and security" next week.
Writing in The Washington Post, Rumsfeld said: "Rather than planning for large conventional wars in precisely defined theaters, we must plan for a world of new and different adversaries who will rely on surprise, deception and asymmetric weapons (such as civilian airliners turned into missiles) to achieve their objectives."
That means divesting ourselves of old-fashioned "legacy forces" and adopting "new concepts of war-fighting, new capabilities and new ways of organizing our forces" to face the dual challenge of liquidating terrorist networks and preparing for future threats.
Rumsfeld pointed out that today's threats -- from nuclear, biological or chemical weapons -- may not be the same as tomorrow's threats, when U.S. information and space systems may be targeted. "Instead of focusing on who an adversary might be," he said, "we must focus on how an adversary might fight, and develop new capabilities to deter and defeat that adversary."
This will require "a transformation of our armed forces, a transformation that will enable us to protect the U.S. homeland while projecting U.S. forces in distant corners of the world, often in hostile environments."
Michael Radu of the Foreign Policy Research Institute agrees that the line between foreign and domestic operations blurs when fighting terrorists, but believes the war cannot be won by soldiers alone. "In the long run," he wrote, "the most important and decisive role is going to be played not by the military but by institutions that Western democracies do not normally see as associated with war: police and intelligence."
Also, he says, we need the help of Muslims and must scrap some of our political correctness.
"There are no known cases of contemporary mass terrorism in the name of Judaism, Christianity, Confucianism, Buddhism or Hinduism," he wrote. "There thus appears to be something in Islam that allows the likes of the Taliban and (Osama) bin Laden to thrive. Only the Muslims themselves can root it out.
"What America needs from the Islamic world far more than military or political support is for Muslims themselves -- from the smallest mosques in New York City to the largest in Mecca -- to read the fundamentalists out of Islam. The most effective counterterrorist force, potentially, is Muslims who proclaim that terrorism is un-Islamic."
Lastly, wrote Radu: "If this war is to be won, the European obsession with the American death penalty has to give way to higher priorities, such as extraditing or putting down terrorists for good. The politically correct campaign against 'racial profiling' has to stop. After all, looking for tall, blond and blue-eyed persons in order to stop Middle Eastern terrorism makes no sense."
This latter bit of advice may chill human-rights activists, who argue that any erosion of our civil liberties means the terrorists have won.
November 3, 2001
Q&A with Holger Jensen: Why can't the United Nations send a peacekeeping force to make Israel and the Palestinians quit fighting?
Question: Why can't the United Nations send a peacekeeping force to make Israel and the Palestinians quit fighting and enforce a cease-fire? It seems to me they'll never do it on their own, and we're taking a lot of flak from the Arabs for supporting Israel.
Answer: Palestinians have been lobbying for U.N. monitors in the West Bank and Gaza for years and have made three formal requests to the U.N. Security Council for a peacekeeping force since the latest conflict, known as the intifada, began in September 2000. But Israel flatly refuses to accept any international force and the United States has repeatedly blocked U.N. efforts to impose such a force, insisting that both sides must give their consent before peacekeepers are sent in.
John Dugard, a South African who serves as the U.N. human rights rapporteur for the region, finds it "difficult to understand why no serious attempt has been made by the international community to persuade Israel to accept such a presence."
Reporting to the 189-nation General Assembly on Monday, he said the main factor behind the fighting was Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian territories and the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.
"Peace will not come until Israel gives clear signs of its intent to end the occupation," said Dugard. Moreover, Israel should start dismantling its settlements, which are "an ever visible and aggravating sign of occupation and of Israel's illegal conduct as an occupying power."
Bottom line: the Palestinians are quite willing, nay begging, to have their conduct monitored by an international force, Israel is not. ---November 3, 2001
Send your questions about the war on terrorism to international editor Holger Jensen, who will answer one each day. E-mail: hjens@aol.com
Copyright © 2001 The E.W. Scripps Co. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted by USAGOLD with permission of Mr. Jensen. No further reproduction without permission.
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