The following is a message from our 2001-2002 President, Tag Demment:
9/11: Linking National Security and Development Assistance
One cannot comment on our year's activities without discussing the implications of the events of September 11 for the country's international perspective especially with regard to development assistance. While we as a people have benefited almost unconsciously from the economics of globalization, we now have suffered quite deliberately from the globalization of terrorism. The country is now focused internationally as it has not been since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Let me state up front that in my discussion of these issues I am in no way attempting to justify or rationalize terrorist acts but wish to understand their causes as a means to make our world more secure and just. The first reactions and discussions that have permeated our lives over these months have been focused on direct action against Al Qaeda. However with time more fundamental issues are being raised about the nature of US interactions with the developing world. Universities are seeing remarkable increases in enrollment in courses related to the Islam and the Middle East. The press is scouring our institutions for scant capacity in expertise related to events of 9/11. In this short period American are beginning to realize how little they understand of the part of the world and how poorly connected we are to events in the region.
In the last decade as the world leader, we have neglected our responsibility to up lift the poor. We have diminished or abandoned much of our positive foreign engagement that addresses the global issues of the poor. Our foreign assistance budget is small (35th among nations as a proportion of GDP, less than France in absolute terms, less than 0.25% of our overall federal budget). Foreign assistance was supported politically in the past as a means of staving off the Soviet influence but with the breakup, there has been little political will for foreign affairs. Our attention span for development has been short and fragmented in a process that is long-term and integrated. In effect we have practiced the politics of disengagement. Nowhere is this more obvious that in Afghanistan. We backed the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan against the Soviets and supported the Mujahideen with military training and weapons (primarily in Pakistan). When the Russians left, we pulled out our support and disengaged from the situation. Disengagement has had its costs. The situation in Afghanistan is in part a result of a lack of positive foreign engagement on our part. We were not there to present an alternative view of the world for Afghanistan that might have assisted them to develop a stable, economically viable society.
I know people whose views are similar to those who caused this horror, although I think none of them would carry out such acts. I believe they started life as human beings just like all of us but their lives became so desperate and convoluted that they think that we are the evil in the world. They think this because of distortions of reality but they believe these distortions in part because they have so little contact with the truth and in part because there is some truth even in the distortions.
In the Middle East, perhaps understandably, we have gone through cycles of engagement, sometimes intense support of the peace process, and withdrawal over the seemingly endless violence and despair. Yet we have failed to exert true leadership in the Middle East. A plan for US long-term involvement, sufficiently focused, intense and balanced, has never emerged. In hindsight the resources now committed to war would likely have brought development and peace to the region, yet the situation continues unresolved, fomenting violence that fuels the distortions of our national values in the eyes of the region's Muslims.
The Israelis have always taken the hard line in the cycle of violence, and the situation is now as bad as it has been in 20 years.Ý Violence alone is not the answer.Ý The French, after the 1996 terrorist bombings in Paris, rooted out the guilty (primarily disaffected Islamic youths from Algerian residents in France) but the government also recognized the causes of the frustrations for this population and reached out to their community with a comprehensive series of social and political programs.Ý The result is that the terror disappeared.
We continue to be active internationally, but not in a sufficiently intense way with long term goals appropriate for development. Instead, we respond in a reactionary way where we feed the starving or provide disaster assistance without figuring out how to improve food systems in the first place or prevent disasters made more intense by poverty, poor land use or faulty construction. We police local conflicts that could at least be dampened by our leadership in diffusing situations before they become violent (Rwanda and Somalia are a classic example of lack of leadership responsibility).
In their eyes, the terrorists are truly fighting a war. We need to understand the conditions that give them their cause and remove them. I support intensive action to root out their networks and extinguish them individually. But at the same time, we will never be safe from terrorism by only constructing shields, becoming less engaged and providing good counterintelligence. Moreover there are great prices to pay in personal freedom and the quality of life for America if we only have a defensive action. We need to attack the disease as well as the symptoms. We need to use our resources to create the foundations for broad based economic growth that nurtures stable democratic societies and eliminates terrorism as the only avenue for action to achieve a reasonable standard of living. We must engage so we not only change the conditions but we also understand the national political, social and economic landscape well enough to be effective partners. Part of the failure of our intelligence has been that we are not sufficiently engaged in these areas to know what is happening.
So I am arguing that we cannot in this globalized world just put up walls and enact a military solution. Terrorism in NYC is globalization's dark side coming back to bite us. We have to go out and not only to punish but also engage and provide a means for the poor to achieve the visions of our world that we think should be the fundamental principles of a world order. Development assistance is a principle means to that end.
Montague "Tag" Demment
One cannot comment on our year's activities without discussing the implications of the events of September 11 for the country's international perspective especially with regard to development assistance. While we as a people have benefited almost unconsciously from the economics of globalization, we now have suffered quite deliberately from the globalization of terrorism. The country is now focused internationally as it has not been since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Let me state up front that in my discussion of these issues I am in no way attempting to justify or rationalize terrorist acts but wish to understand their causes as a means to make our world more secure and just. The first reactions and discussions that have permeated our lives over these months have been focused on direct action against Al Qaeda. However with time more fundamental issues are being raised about the nature of US interactions with the developing world. Universities are seeing remarkable increases in enrollment in courses related to the Islam and the Middle East. The press is scouring our institutions for scant capacity in expertise related to events of 9/11. In this short period American are beginning to realize how little they understand of the part of the world and how poorly connected we are to events in the region.
In the last decade as the world leader, we have neglected our responsibility to up lift the poor. We have diminished or abandoned much of our positive foreign engagement that addresses the global issues of the poor. Our foreign assistance budget is small (35th among nations as a proportion of GDP, less than France in absolute terms, less than 0.25% of our overall federal budget). Foreign assistance was supported politically in the past as a means of staving off the Soviet influence but with the breakup, there has been little political will for foreign affairs. Our attention span for development has been short and fragmented in a process that is long-term and integrated. In effect we have practiced the politics of disengagement. Nowhere is this more obvious that in Afghanistan. We backed the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan against the Soviets and supported the Mujahideen with military training and weapons (primarily in Pakistan). When the Russians left, we pulled out our support and disengaged from the situation. Disengagement has had its costs. The situation in Afghanistan is in part a result of a lack of positive foreign engagement on our part. We were not there to present an alternative view of the world for Afghanistan that might have assisted them to develop a stable, economically viable society.
I know people whose views are similar to those who caused this horror, although I think none of them would carry out such acts. I believe they started life as human beings just like all of us but their lives became so desperate and convoluted that they think that we are the evil in the world. They think this because of distortions of reality but they believe these distortions in part because they have so little contact with the truth and in part because there is some truth even in the distortions.
In the Middle East, perhaps understandably, we have gone through cycles of engagement, sometimes intense support of the peace process, and withdrawal over the seemingly endless violence and despair. Yet we have failed to exert true leadership in the Middle East. A plan for US long-term involvement, sufficiently focused, intense and balanced, has never emerged. In hindsight the resources now committed to war would likely have brought development and peace to the region, yet the situation continues unresolved, fomenting violence that fuels the distortions of our national values in the eyes of the region's Muslims.
The Israelis have always taken the hard line in the cycle of violence, and the situation is now as bad as it has been in 20 years.Ý Violence alone is not the answer.Ý The French, after the 1996 terrorist bombings in Paris, rooted out the guilty (primarily disaffected Islamic youths from Algerian residents in France) but the government also recognized the causes of the frustrations for this population and reached out to their community with a comprehensive series of social and political programs.Ý The result is that the terror disappeared.
We continue to be active internationally, but not in a sufficiently intense way with long term goals appropriate for development. Instead, we respond in a reactionary way where we feed the starving or provide disaster assistance without figuring out how to improve food systems in the first place or prevent disasters made more intense by poverty, poor land use or faulty construction. We police local conflicts that could at least be dampened by our leadership in diffusing situations before they become violent (Rwanda and Somalia are a classic example of lack of leadership responsibility).
In their eyes, the terrorists are truly fighting a war. We need to understand the conditions that give them their cause and remove them. I support intensive action to root out their networks and extinguish them individually. But at the same time, we will never be safe from terrorism by only constructing shields, becoming less engaged and providing good counterintelligence. Moreover there are great prices to pay in personal freedom and the quality of life for America if we only have a defensive action. We need to attack the disease as well as the symptoms. We need to use our resources to create the foundations for broad based economic growth that nurtures stable democratic societies and eliminates terrorism as the only avenue for action to achieve a reasonable standard of living. We must engage so we not only change the conditions but we also understand the national political, social and economic landscape well enough to be effective partners. Part of the failure of our intelligence has been that we are not sufficiently engaged in these areas to know what is happening.
So I am arguing that we cannot in this globalized world just put up walls and enact a military solution. Terrorism in NYC is globalization's dark side coming back to bite us. We have to go out and not only to punish but also engage and provide a means for the poor to achieve the visions of our world that we think should be the fundamental principles of a world order. Development assistance is a principle means to that end.
Montague "Tag" Demment
