War not a solution

On September 11 in New York, out of the blue, the Twin Towers vanished. Thousands of lives were lost. Starting from October 7, in Afghanistan, not surprisingly, lots of houses disappeared. Many civilians were unfortunately killed during the air strike. If Osama bin Laden is a terrorist, it is because he is considered as the man behind the 9-11 incident which killed lots of the U.S. civilians. Now, President George Bush has decided to bomb Afghanistan in order to catch bin Laden and put an end to the Taliban. Then what is the difference between George Bush and Osama bin Laden? Please do not think this question is absurd. According to some people, they can justify the means by saying that they are cracking down the terrorists. However, what the Afghanistan civilians see are houses wrecked, beloved dead, caused by the same fighter-bomber which drops down food, a bait used by the U.S. to make the civilians welcome them. Whether bombing a whole country just for its small minority of terrorists at the cost of lots of civilians is legitimate is one question. Another more important question is whether the military attack can stop any form of terrorism. By persistent bombing, the troops can probably wipe out the resources of the terrorists. They may finally catch a bunch of terrorists including bin Laden if they are lucky enough.

However, the emergence of terrorism is not due to wealth or resources, but to hatred. Why there are people willing to crash a plane to destroy the Twin Towers and the Pentagon? Just because they are homicidal? Yes, a few people may enjoy killing without any cost or punishment, like what the Japanese did in the Nanjing Massacre. But this time, the terrorists had to pay with their own lives! If you can kill any people without any cost, but you have to die immediately afterwards, will you do that? The hatred seems to be so immense that the terrorists are eager to perform the act in spite of losing their own lives. The military attack will only fill many more Arabs with hatred, which may only turn out to produce a new breed of terrorists. They will not be threatening soon because they do not have enough resources but they may be able to repeat what the terrorists in the 9-11 incident did someday. War may effectively weaken the power of the terrorists in the short run. However, in order to completely terminate any terrorist act, the U.S. should try to review her diplomatic policy to see why there is anti-American hatred among the Arabic countries. For example, is the U.S. too biased to Israel? After all, military force will never be an effective method to achieve peace. Herbert Lau University of Cambridge

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