So, what's the answer?

• Author: Klare, Michael T.
• Position: Response to terrorist acts should not be with terrorism

Like other segments of American society, the U.S. peace movement was in considerable disarray after the September 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. Some veteran peace activists succumbed to the wave of jingoism sweeping the nation, displaying American flags on their homes and supporting the call for military retaliation. Others organized vigils and called for a restrained, nonmilitary response to the attacks. Still others likened the September 11 attacks to the injuries inflicted on the Iraqis and others by the United States, implying somehow that we are the victims of our own misbehavior. In no way, however, did the peace movement succeed in articulating a coherent, morally sustainable position on the September 11 attacks.

If the peace movement is to emerge from this crisis with any influence and credibility in the months ahead, it must work overtime to develop a viable strategy for dealing with terrorism and associated issues. Like other Americans, we must recognize that everything has changed since September 11: It will never be possible to return to the policies, slogans, and tactics that constituted our standard repertoire in the pre-attack period. From now on, we will be measured by our position on terrorism.

This is a daunting challenge. Not since Pearl Harbor has the peace movement had to deal with a hostile attack on American soil, or with the loss of so many civilian American lives.

The September 11 attacks posed an excruciatingly difficult dilemma for many in the peace movement for other reasons, as well. Some of the grievances expressed by bin Laden's adherents--for example, the suffering experienced by ordinary Iraqis due to the U.S.-imposed economic sanctions and the agony suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of Israel--are also among the grievances of peace activists. On the one hand, we wanted to affirm the legitimacy of these grievances, but on the other hand, we needed to condemn the terrorist attacks in no uncertain terms.

We had no choice but to grapple with these challenges and to devise the best possible solution. As I saw it, this meant finding a way to embrace the anger and anxiety experienced by ordinary Americans over the traumatic impact of terrorism and to construct a response to it that was both credible and consistent with our values. We must be able to talk about terrorism without minimizing the threat it poses to the United States or trying to shift the discussion to our own programmatic concerns. This will not be easy, but it is something that we can and must do.

We needed to reject a purely American assessment of what is happening and what should be done. Instead, we needed to talk about internationalizing both the crisis and the response.

It was all too easy to view this crisis through an exclusively American...