Sec’y of State Colin Powell is garnering much praise for the alacrity with which he has apparently hammered out a global alliance in support of US, or even joint, action in the wake of the attack. Russian and Islamic assent has been cited. But I fear we will whitewash and minimize indications that we have not really achieved consensus. The non-U.S. press will be a better indicator of what support we do and do not have. Here, from The Independent: “Despite calls from US President George Bush to Russian

President Vladimir Putin, asking for full support in the wake of

the suicide attacks, Russia is making it clear that it will not

back an American invasion of Afghanistan from bases in the

former Soviet Central Asia.”

General Anatoly Kvashnin, the Russian Chief of Staff, said it

was unlikely that the Russian army would take part in any

“acts of revenge” against the perpetrators of the attacks in the

US. “The US has powerful enough military forces that it can

cope with this task on its own,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nikolai Kovalyov, the former head of the Russian

FSB security service, warned the US that an attack on

Afghanistan would fail to capture Osama bin Laden, the alleged

mastermind of the atrocities, and would backfire on the US. “In

Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain it takes a trainload of

explosives to destroy three militants,” he said. “The chance of

hitting bin Laden is zero.”

Especially if agreements do not hold, as Anthony Lewis says in The New York Times,

Beware Unintended Results: “The danger in the current situation is that hasty, ill-targeted military action

could arouse anti-Western sentiments right across the Middle East. That

could threaten such important U.S. friends as the governments of Egypt

and Jordan — and Saudi Arabia, from which Osama bin Laden is an

angry exile and which is at the core of his grievance. He would be

delighted at a United States response that destabilized the Saudi regime.”

Do we really, for example, have Pakistan’s “unstinted cooperation,” as its military leader has been reported to say? Polite statements of support from the broad spectrum of the international community at a time of condolence may not turn into a sustained commitment. The regimes of the moderate Islamic world in particular are likely to be conciliatory at this time to deflect the specter of American impulsive wrath. But, would they be earnest participants in a world war against Islam which would threaten to erode their in many cases precarious hold over their own populaces?

If the Shrub takes a page from his father’s book (he’s already getting a war to be at the helm of, just like Daddy did… although it didn’t do much for Senior’s reelection success), he will create a coalition in name only, like the Gulf War coalition, which fell apart after a much simpler, limited military objective was readily met. And if we bully the world community into cooperation, we perpetuate the hatred for the way in which the U.S. thows its weight around.

In this light, Harry Browne asks When will we learn?:

“Our foreign policy has been insane for decades.

It was only a matter of time until Americans

would have to suffer personally for it. It is a

terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often

have to suffer for the sins of the guilty.

When will we learn that we can’t allow our

politicians to bully the world without someone

bullying back eventually?

President Bush has authorized continued

bombing of innocent people in Iraq. President

Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan,

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush,

senior, invaded Iraq and Panama. President

Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and

invaded Grenada. And on and on it goes.

Did we think the people who lost their families

and friends and property in all that destruction

would love America for what happened?”