If I was queen of the world

The thing I find scary about Kristof's editorial today is the fact that I haven't read anything about nuclear proliferation in the media for a long, long time. Unlike biological or chemical weapons, there are countries in the world with aging stockpiles of nuclear weapons that are in desperate need of cash - Russia and former Soviet satellites. Hand over enough cash and you've got yourself an adorable mini bomb (an iBomb mini?) with which to do as much damage as deemed necessary to advance your cause.

The crazy thing which of course seems so obvious to omnicient me is that with terrorists either you're going to have to take away their ability to commit acts of terrorism, or you've got to take away the feeling - legitimate or not - of needing to advance whatever cause. The current administration is going after the former, which as anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together can see is greatly increasing the latter while not effectively curbing terrorist organizations. I still can't understand how going to war against a particular country was EVER supposed to make it harder for an inherently NON-national organization to operate.

Anyway. If I was queen of the world, or even just president of the US, I'd start by looking at what terrorists want, beyond "to kill us" (even if that may be literally true). And from that, and from what I heard in Egypt a few months ago (as soon as people heard I was American, it was just Israel Israel Israel all the time, from everyone I met), I'd start putting a LOT of effort towards making progress towards peace - or at least some form of detente - between the Israelis and the Palestinians. You know if people in Indonesia are hot under the collar because of something happening on the other side of the world - and willing to kill for that, like in Bali - that there's something seriously wrong and that needs constant attention, no matter how hopeless the situation appears to be. I'd also put some serious oomph back into nuclear non-proliferation (didn't there used to be some treaty or something about that? that we maybe used to belong to?)

One thing I've learned very effectively from this summer of corporate financial research is that investors don't really care if companies aren't really doing something about their problems - as long as there's the appearance of progress, and at least the will to do something, they're usually pretty generous about giving a company the benefit of the doubt. The past few years the US hasn't even bothered with the appearance of trying to improve its image, and has in fact made many decisive steps in the opposite direction. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night...

Comments

[T: Central]

Nobody's ever getting elected Prez of the US who has said, "I'd start by looking at what terrorists want."

Now, to me, *understanding* the cause(s) is part of a practical approach to reducing terrorist recruitment. Unfortunately, the "what they want" construct has, for better or worse, been effectively pigeonholed as the language of appeasement, no matter what follows it.

[john mcmunn]

Mostly what the terrorists want is power so they can indulge in their fantasy world of whatever sort, depending on the flavor of terrorism, unimpeded.