Edward White, a colleague of
Edward White, a colleague of mine in New York City sent the following to me in response to Rushdie’s commentary that I posted below:
“After reading Rushdie’s elegant prose I hate to get into print on this, but feel obliged. American foreign policy and the general attitudes of Americans towards it, and the world at large, is that we’d like foreign relations to be neat, simple, understandable and not take too much of our time. We know we’re the “nice guys” (no, seriously, I think we are–comparatively speaking of course) and we’d like everybody else (1) to know it (2) to like us, and (3) to be like us.
“Well it ain’t happenin’. They don’t know it, they don’t like us and they aren’t like us at all. We also want our “solutions” to be at least total, if not quick. That pretty much sums up the official view of our war on terrorism. The President says it won’t be quick but it will be total. So, we set ourselves up for failure, because there is no total solution. We’ll have to keep slogging away at this for a long time on all fronts — military (hopefully in short, sharp engagements), diplomatic, financial, intelligence, etc., but at the end of the day we’ll find there are still some glassy eyed buggers out there who think they have truth by the balls and see it as their divine right (and duty) to bury us. So we keep hitting them, and we don’t need to apologize or get anybody’s permission to do so. We also have to recognize that “colateral damage” is an inevitable cost, so we aren’t going to suddenly start being popular.
“I cannot imagine any shifts in America’s policies that would remove world economic disparities or right all the political and diplomatic wrongs that have been committed, including those by us. Nor does my reading of history turn up any society that has shown more willingness to try the impossible or greater generosity in trying to help the disadvantaged nations (which is NOT erased by the fact that it’s good business to do so when your aid dollars ultimately are spent mainly in the US buying American goods and services).
“In the final analysis, you can’t train people who see terrorism as a viable mode of behavior not to hate you nor, when they’re suicidal, can you frighten them into not trying to kill you. If you can’t solve a problem, the best plan is to eliminate it. But common sense says it’s going to keep on being there, perhaps forever. “Successive approximation” both as a goal and a strategy is probably as good as it gets.”