Op-Ed

AUSTIN --- Afghanistan is to nation-building what Afghanistan is to war -- pretty much the last place on earth you'd choose, if you had any choice at all. I point this out not to oppose the idea, about which I think we have no choice, but to underline that the task is hard, long and incredibly complicated. President Bush has said that from the beginning, but it cannot be said too often.

The Pentagon's air drops of food parcels and President Bush's plea for American children to aid Afghan kids with dollar bills will go down in history as two of the most cynical maneuvers of media manipulation in the early 21st century.

Many U.S. news outlets have been eager to play along. A New York Times editorial proclaimed that "Mr. Bush has wisely made providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people an integral part of American strategy." Four days later, on Oct. 12, the same newspaper still had nothing but praise for the U.S. government's food aid charades: "His reaffirmation of the need for humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan -- including donations from American children -- seemed heartfelt."

While thousands of kids across the United States stuff dollar bills into envelopes and mail them to the White House, the U.S. government continues a bombing campaign that is accelerating the momentum of mass starvation in Afghanistan.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Actually, this is pathetic.

And I say this as one who supported military action in the wake of the attacks. I still think we're dealing with a crime, not a war, but it wasn't a crime Interpol could solve. Who could we send but the military? If we could just find an enemy.

As The Onion put it, "U.S. Vows to Defeat Whoever It Is We're at War With." Here we are bombing not just a poor country, but quite likely the most miserable place on earth, and creating a tidal wave of starving refugees in the process. There has to be a better way.

Sissy Farenthold, the Mother Teresa of Texas liberalism, says her reaction to the attacks was, "If not now, when? (SET ITAL) When (END ITAL) are we going to try the law?" International law is not in a high state of development. Just bringing Slobodan Milosevic, a remarkably hideous specimen, to trial took several years. Nevertheless, when you stand back and look at it, the development of international law is one of the few things that will give you hope for Earth.

AUSTIN -- So far, so good. Way to go, military.

It has turned out, in previous campaigns of oxymoronic "surgical bombing," that initial reports exaggerated both the effectiveness and the accuracy of our efforts. But as of the bombing of Yugoslavia (with the exception of the unfortunate "ooops" over the Chinese Embassy), we seem to be getting better at the ghastly art.

The pathetic shortage of what the military calls "first class targets" in Afghanistan was underlined in the first wave of bombing designed to take out the Taliban's air weapons -- according to one British expert, they have or had 12 planes. Our announced plan of clearing the skies so we can bomb them with butter seems to me exceptionally shrewd, although we have the unfortunate precedent of a humanitarian mission turned sour from Somalia.

When the bombing of Afghanistan resumed Monday night [Oct. 8], retired generals showed no fatigue at their posts under hot lights at network studios. On CNN, former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark teamed up with Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd to explain military strategies; they were sharing their insights as employees of AOL Time Warner.

Far away, missiles are flying and bombs are exploding -- but in televisionland, a sense of equilibrium prevails. The tones are calm; the correspondents are self-composed. News bulletins crawl across the bottom of the screen, along with invitations to learn more. "Take a 3-D look at U.S. military aircraft at CNN.com."

At Pentagon briefings, carried live, the secretary of defense bears a chilling resemblance to a predecessor named McNamara. But the language of Donald Rumsfeld is thoroughly modern, foreshadowing a war without end: "In this battle against terrorism, there is no silver bullet." But there will be many bullets, missiles and bombs. We hear the customary assurances that air strikes will be surgical, and Rumsfeld echoes the metaphor: "Terrorism is a cancer on the human condition."

AUSTIN -- Operating on the theory that what we owe our country in time of crisis is, among other things, our best thinking, let's continue to think about what America can usefully do now.

We have a bad national habit of playing the blame game when something goes wrong. This first thing we ask is, "Whose fault is this?" We've already got congressional committees trying to figure out who was asleep at the wheel, who should have known, what should have been done, etc. Many of our more thoughtful citizens are exhuming years of American policy in the Arab world, much of which, in retrospect, seems to have been unwise.

Brian Urquhart, the great British diplomat, once suggested the Israelis and the Palestinians (and practically everyone in the Middle East) should just blame the British for everything. In the first place, there's some historic merit to the argument, and in the second place, there's nothing like a common enemy to unite warring parties. Tony Blair for bad guy.

During the first two days of this month, CNN's website displayed an odd little announcement. "There have been false reports that CNN has not used the word 'terrorist' to refer to those who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon," the notice said. "In fact, CNN has consistently and repeatedly referred to the attackers and hijackers as terrorists, and it will continue to do so."

The CNN disclaimer was accurate -- and, by conventional media standards, reassuring. But it bypassed a basic question that festers beneath America's overwhelming media coverage of recent weeks: Exactly what qualifies as "terrorism"?

For this country's mainstream journalists, that's a non-question about a no-brainer. More than ever, the proper function of the "terrorist" label seems obvious. "A group of people commandeered airliners and used them as guided missiles against thousands of people," says NBC News executive Bill Wheatley. "If that doesn't fit the definition of terrorism, what does?"

AUSTIN, Texas -- Back from a month in Europe, I meant to begin by suggesting it's time to start thinking outside the box. Then I got back to Texas. The sign outside our neighborhood strip joint says, "Hot Babes, Cold Beer, Nuke 'Em, GW." Actually, let's start by thinking.

Bush's "bomb them with butter" campaign in Afghanistan is a good start. One step we might usefully ponder is announcing that Osama bin Laden, when smoked out and rounded up, will be turned over to the World Court in The Hague to be tried for crimes against humanity.

First, bin Laden and his terrorist network are guilty of crimes against humanity; second, this would emphasize that it's the whole world against the terrorists; third, we're more likely to get bin Laden that way. The few extreme Arab states might hesitate to turn him over to the Great Satan, but turning him over to the World Court would be much easier for them. The government of Pakistan, in particular, which is between a rock and hard place, would find this helpful -- and Pakistan is in a position to be very useful to us.

Imagine your cousin shot in the eye, dead at the age of 22. Picture your parents, huddling in the pitch-dark house, fearful of gunshots outside. For those whose families and relatives live under Israeli occupation, like Nasri Elwawi and Jad Humeidan of Central Ohio, such nightmarish visions have become traumatic everyday realities. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 636 Palestinians have been killed and 15,543 injured since September 29, 2000 (figures reported at midnight on September 8, 2001). Roughly a third of those killed are children 18 or under. Numbers alone are horrendous, but remember, also, that behind each death and injury there is the invisible anguish of countless Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and diaspora — yes in Columbus, Ohio as well.

Many Americans — unaware that the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem) has doubled in the past decade during the so-called “peace process” — are surprised by the intensity of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

Back in 1988, the father of our current president was bedeviled by what media outlets called "the wimp factor." After eight years as vice president, George Bush was making a run for the Oval Office. But quite a few journalists kept asking whether he was a tough enough man for the job. Newsweek even headlined the "wimp" epithet in a cover story about him.

That image problem faded in late December of 1989, when U.S. troops invaded Panama. The commander-in-chief drew blood -- proving to some journalists that he had the right stuff. A New York Times reporter, R.W. Apple, wrote that the assault on Panama was Bush's "presidential initiation rite" -- as though military intervention in a Third World nation was mandatory evidence of leadership mettle.

But even later, while still ensconced in the White House, the senior Bush remained notably stung by the epithet. He couldn't always keep the pain of it under wraps. "You're talking to the 'wimp,'" President Bush commented on June 16, 1991. "You're talking to the guy that had a cover of a national magazine, that I'll never forgive, put that label on me."