Beginning Is Not Only A Kind Of

Ironically, Many Of People, Including Osama Bin Laden And The Mujahedeen, Were, In Fact, Nourished By The United States In The Early Eighties In Its Efforts To Drive The Soviets Out Of Afghanistan.

All The Words That George Bush Used In Public During The Early Stages Of The Crisis - "wanted, Dead Or Alive," "a Crusade," Etc. - Suggest Not So Much An Orderly And Considered Progress Towards Bringing The Man To Justice According To International Norms, But Rather Something Apocalyptic, Something Of The Order Of The Criminal Atrocity Itself. That Will Make Matters A Lot, Lot Worse, Because There Are Always Consequences.

And What Terrifies Me Is That We're Entering A Phase Where If You Start To Speak About This As Something That Can Be Understood Historically - Without Any Sympathy - You Are Going To Be Thought Of As Unpatriotic, And You Are Going To Be Forbidden. It's Very Dangerous. It Is Precisely Incumbent On Every Citizen To Quite Understand The World We're Living In And The History We Are A Part Of And We Are Forming As A Superpower.

Note That There Was No Claim For These Attacks [on 9/11]. There Were No Demands. There Were No Statements. It Was A Silent Piece Of Terror.

To Say That We're Going To End Countries Or Eradicate Terrorism, And That It's A Long War Over Many Years, With Many Different Instruments, Suggests A Much More Complex And Drawn-out Conflict For Which, I Think, Most Americans Aren't Prepared.