Letters to the Editor

The United States fails to appease

Truth be told, most of us are entirely unsure about how America should respond to the Sept. 11 attacks. We know that those who planned and carried out the attacks deserve punishment and should not be given the impression that they can get away with it — so a military response seems appropriate. But we also realize that there is nothing fair or productive about dropping bombs on innocent people, and we worry about the possibility that military retaliation will incite more of the terrorist attacks that it is supposed to discourage.

Some of us try to resolve our uncertainty by learning as much as we can about the situation and considering the various responses available. Others seek certainty in unthinking ideological reflexes. The latter course, unfortunately, is taken in several recent contributions to the 'Prince' and is especially well represented in Eric Dennis GS's Oct. 9 letter.

Dennis thinks that a promising way forward is to think about how a fifth-grader should behave towards a bully. The attacks occurred, says Dennis, because America has engaged in a policy of "appeasement." What is appeasement? Dennis doesn't tell us, but he gives three examples: allowing the Middle Eastern oil nationalizations in the '50s, encouraging the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate and the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan that followed the African embassy attacks in the '90s. Historical liberties aside, Dennis seems to be saying that the fact that these three disparate policies were pursued provides "unequivocal" and "unanswerable" evidence that this thing called "appeasement" led to the Sept. 11 attacks. Which is, apparently, just the same as saying that America should not act like a "quivering fifth grader."

Significantly, Dennis never says what he thinks America's policy should have been during the last 50 years (although one imagines that it would have involved some loud explosions), and he omits any mention of America's involvement in military campaigns like, say, the Gulf War. Still more significantly, he doesn't say who the present response should be directed towards. They may be "hissing, degenerate looters" but that doesn't make them any easier to find.

The point is this: Sometimes retaliation works, and sometimes it makes things worse. It all depends on the details of the situation, and in this case the details are far from clear. So let's try to move beyond the mindless platitudes and infantile analogies. Let's acknowledge our collective uncertainty and try to engage in a constructive and informed debate. Simon Keller GS