Johan Galtung

I would like to start with a public opinion poll which you may know, but it is also quite likely that you don't know it. It was made in 31 countries and it was made about 10 days after September 11th. It was a Gallop poll published in many countries but I have never heard that it was published in the US. The people were given the choice between two options and you may describe the options as police action and military action. And the police action would have as its goal to apprehend the responsible, arraign them into court and if possible sentence them. And the military action would essentially be retribution, retaliation, but also possibly extermination.{1:52}

The overwhelming majority in the world, about 80% were in favor of police action. There were only two countries in the world in favor of military action. That was Israel with 77% and the United States with 54%. The most belligerent in that sense in Europe was France with 29%; England was way below that.

Now what this means is a little bit interesting. This is as close as you can come to a globalized democracy. We have nothing closer. The world opinion is not in favor of what is currently happening. They are in favor of apprehending the responsible and bringing them to justice, in the way this is done in due process of law. They're not in favor of an all out retribution. As I mentioned, that was only two countries. If the result of the public opinion poll had been the opposite this would have been on the first page of all US newspapers and all the western newspapers.

Now there is something in that which is a little bit sad, and that is of course the first victim of war, which is truth, so I take that as a point of departure. {3:28}

Since I'm now going to, from a TRANSCEND point of view, design a policy, that policy is on two tracks. On track one is police action. Track two has as its point of departure this scheme.

And it says we have had a major act of unpardonable violence, a crime against humanity, where we not only feel sympathy for the victims located so close to here, but also feel very strongly that there is something called justice and they should be brought to justice. But that doesn't mean that we stop thinking and that we stop asking ourselves why did this happen. And along the line here we have of course the idea of polarization and dehumanization

and the enormous amount of dehumanization underlying this act and before that, the untransformed conflict. So the second track will then ask the questions:

Which are these conflicts?
What dialogues can we have?
What possible solutions exist or transformations?
What would be the first steps?
And what would be the possible reconciliation that could bring us out of it?

Now that would be therapy. Before we try to engage in therapy we usually do diagnosis and prognosis, but in this case I will turn it around: I'll start with the therapy.

So the recommendations are the following 7 steps but the text is the point of departure, the text left behind by the perpetrators, because they left behind a text. And the text was not written in English or in any other language. It was written in two buildings. And the message was that they had something against economic USA and military USA. They did not bomb the Statue of Liberty; it was not against Congress; it was not the White House; it was not Arlington Cemetery; it was not against any cultural monument of the US; it was against exactly Economic America and Military America. One could speculate about the fourth plane. If the fourth plane were heading for Langley, Virginia it would complete the equation. I don't have the slightest basis for saying that that was the case, nor did Washington have any basis for saying that it was heading for the White House or even Air Force One. Which even at their level of ability would have been somewhat difficult.

So. The kind of moves that would have to be taken would have to address Economic America and Military America in terms of foreign policy. That, of course, requires that you buy into a model of this type,

namely that violence is caused. And as we all know, discourse A today is not that discourse: discourse A is the terrorist discourse. Namely, it is not caused by anything, except to be evil. I think the President of the US used the word "evildoer" 9 times in his first speech. In other words, the point was made very clearly. The other side uses a similar figure, "Great Satan". It's also a way of cutting out rational thought by just simply labeling the antagonist in a way which deprives the antagonist of motivation, rationales.

We then have to address one problem, if they now say that they have reasons does that mean that we justify what happened? No, it only means that we try to understand. We try to understand what those subjective reasons are ? we may not agree with them, we may agree with them ? but the point is that if we want this not to be repeated, we might contemplate the idea of removing the causes. So removing the causes of a heinous violent act is one approach. {8:11}

The other approach is to define them as terrorists, as vermin to be exterminated, and that approach is today the approach that is being pursued.
So let me now, after that brief introduction, take 6 maybe 7 policy steps.

Step #1 is US troops out of Arabia. And I on purpose do not say Saudi Arabia, I say Arabia. I think it has to be understood that to station US troops in a holy land with the two holy places is the model equivalent of having NATO headquarters in Napoli moved to the Vatican City. There are certain things one doesn't do. That is an insult and it does not help in the slightest that that insult is accepted by the government. The government is not seen as an Islamic authority: the government is Arabia. Now that insult can only be removed by removing the troops. Even worse is using military bases, air bases, for bombing another Muslim country. Continue along those lines and the words will become even deeper and the traumas even deeper, and it will continue. Remove the troops and it will serve as a signal that a message has arrived. That's number 1. {9:48}

Number 2, lifting the sanctions on Iraq and simply engage in the dialogue with the hated ? also by very many Iraqis ? regime. In 1990 they had 4 very concrete issues that all could be solved. It was when they encountered a total lack of willingness to listen to their issues, that out of rage, the leader of the country Saddam Hussein made a fascist step in his invasion of Kuwait. I find that very often happening: that a major cause of violence is when one side comes to conclusion that violence is the only language they understand. And it's not because they haven't said things but it's because nobody has listened. And that was my purpose of the dialog I tried to act with an Indonesian General: the 5 points he made, even if the language was harsh, the 5 points were entirely rational. We might consider perhaps: is there more independence? But you have to understand that we are apprehensive about the military, economic, cultural, social, and political implications. Now the moment you pay attention to that, everything becomes different. So under the logic of one side being an evildoer you're not going to listen because why should anybody listen to an evildoer? He's only out to do evil anyhow. There's no reason to do it. The word terrorist is a communication that I have cut off my intellectual faculties; I'm not going to listen; I'm just going to act and my basic canon of action will be search and destroy. {12:00}

So I am saying there is still an opening for dialog with Iraq. Some of this has to do with the oil field shared with Kuwait and under the border. So that the country that is most intact can scoop up most of the oil. A division formula for that has not yet been designed.

Point 3. In connection with lifting the sanctions on Iraq, there is a statement by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, which is probably the statement I most often hear quoted in Muslim countries. As a response to a journalist interview in 1996 to the question, "500,000 children have been killed by the sanctions, they say, is that really worth the price?" She responded, "It was a very hard choice, and yes, it was worth the price". Now if you are willing to sacrifice 500,000 children for some political gain, it is known as fascism. An apology is due. That apology, since she is no longer Secretary of State, will have to come from higher forces.

Point 4. President Khatami of Iran, some years ago issued an invitation for dialog at the top level between Iran and Washington. That invitation has never been taken up. This is not a question of negotiating some concrete settlement or concrete things today. It is a question of going through history from 1953, at least, when the US toppled the Mosaddeq regime, which was reasonably democratically elected, and put in place the Shah regime. Again, an apology is in order, but I think the basic point is the dialogue. When one has the dialogue, you will have to stomach that some things will be said that are not so agreeable. You may also have a couple of points to make. There may be an exchange: one big apology in one direction; one smaller one in the other direction. And you can discuss the size. But after that you come to the next stage, namely where do we go from now? But you have to tolerate that there is a first phase, the phase 1. The strong will tolerate that. It's only the weak who escapes from it and cannot stomach it. {14:50}

Point 5. When it comes to Afghanistan I would, based on TRANSCEND's experience with mediation in Afghanistan, suggest a 5 point formula.

Point 1. A coalition government broadly based with Talibans ? not without Talibans. 100% Taliban is unacceptable; 0% Taliban is also unacceptable. There are many percentage points between 0 and 100 that can be recommended. To be quite precise there are 99 points, so there is much to choose from. Why not 0%? Because the Taliban so much to their credit in Afghanistan: "they care" is awarded; they have the abolition of the opium planting; they have the toppling of an even more hated regime, the Mujahideen that are at the nucleus of the Northern Alliance. Now that's already important. Religiously they represent the same branch of Islam, the Wahabbite, as the Saudi, and in this case Saudi Arabian regime . They are dogmatically the genuine children of Saudi Arabia. The treatment of women is the same; sects are the same; it's only that Saudi Arabia does it at a higher level of material living. Material living due to the oil. Now one country has oil; the other at most can have an oil pipeline. The case for 0% Taliban is not what we heard, even from their very clearly declared enemies. The Taliban, being indispensable, you then move on to

Point 2. What's the purpose of such a coalition government? To satisfy the basic needs of the population. That means:
[a.] Law and order for survival.
[b.] It means adequate food supply, medicine, educational materials, and here the external world will have to help and accept help particularly from UN agencies ? not from the Security Council for a reason I am coming to ? and from the Organization of the Islamic Conference. There doesn't have to be any contradiction between those two. {17:40}
[c.] The third basic need is freedom, particularly freedom of election and the freedom of the press. The Taliban is incapable to guarantee anything of that. As incapable as its mother regime Saudi Arabia.
[d.] The fourth basic need is identity. They are, practically speaking, all Muslims, but they talk very different tongues. The Pashtuns, the Khasara, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Farsi speaking could point to a federated Afghanistan. A federation instead of a unitary state. In this federation the Northern Alliance has no place for 3 reasons. One is the very heavy load of the Mujahideen, and I repeat a more hated regime than the Taliban. The second reason is the preponderance of Uzbeks and Tajiks, in other words, minorities, and its weak representation among the Pashtuns and other groups. And the third reason is the connotation of being an instrument of external powers. {19:00}
That moves us to

Point 3. Afghanistan is for the Afghanis. And that means to stop our meddling. Meddling from external powers. That started in 1842 and it has been going on all the time. It's called cynically by the powers that be, it's called, "The Great Game". The Afghanis are sick and tired and revolting against it. That doesn't mean that some of them cannot be bought, but I am deeply convinced that those would only be small minorities and that the majority of Afghani people want Afghanistan for Afghanistan. That brings us to

Point 4. They want cooperation in the longer run with surrounding Islamic countries. But that will have to be on the basis of some kind of confederation; some kind of community. In other words, a central Asian community. It would be Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in other words the 5 Central Asian former Soviet Republics. It would mean Iran, Pakistan, part of Kashmir. This will take time and that time is not yet ripe. That may take long time. {20:30}

Point 5 and last point. They want to connect to the world but do not accept the United Nations Security Council for the very simple reason that very many people unfortunately are not reflected upon. The UN Security Council has an upper house of 5 veto powers, 4 of these powers are Christian, one is Confucian and sometimes confused. The 4 Christian powers are Protestant United States, Anglican England, Catholic France, and Orthodox Russia. It is worth asking the question how seriously we would take a security council with 4 Muslim countries and one Confucian country sometimes confused. We would probably not take it very seriously. There are 56 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference. They are all neglected by the Security Council. This is an untenable situation. Many of the Security Council mandated sanctions are against Muslim countries. There's not one against the Jewish state and few against declared Christian countries. Now that doesn't mean that one wouldn't like to be linked to some kind of security arrangement, and the thought that I heard several times was an Organization for Security and Cooperation for the Asia Pacific. A regional organization like the OSCE for Europe . That would have Russia as a member obviously. It will not have the US and Canada as members, they are members of OSCE. It is not obvious that Canada is a European country nor the US. Those are things that can be revised. An Organization for Security and Cooperation in the Americas obviously has Canada and the US as members. {22:45}

So having said that, I am reflecting the near consensus outcome of 1 week's mediation with 100 Afghanis. And I can in a sense challenge people to come up with a better expression. One thing they were particularly bitter about, with mediators who only contacted top people: How about the King ? how about Mohammed Shah? Not impossible as a symbol to launch a Loya Jirga (the grand consultative round of sheiks particularly). But not if he is seen as a US puppet. Since he is increasingly seen as a US puppet, it'll probably be problematic.

So now I have said something about Arabia, two points about Iraq, one point about Iran, one point about Afghanistan.

We then come to point 6, Palestine. We just pick up one point, recognition of Palestine as a state, and this is where Washington has made a move.
It is interesting when I said exactly this list the same day as September 11th, because I have been working on this for many years, so I know more or less where the sticky points are. And I gave this list. People told me it was totally unrealistic; it will never happen, particularly the point about Palestine. Well that's exactly the point that happened. Don't ever say never. Things that will not happen today and not tomorrow may happen the day after tomorrow. You increase the likelihood by putting it on the list of wishes.

Now I'll not elaborate on Palestine since that was what we did just before this, and there are many many many many more things to be said. I only want to welcome and hope for the sincerity behind the possible recognition of Palestine as a state. It would take some of the poison out of the relationship.
Last point, globalization free zones in the world. Pay attention to the fact that economic America was hit: The World Trade Center. In absolutely no way can the blame for all the ills of the world economically be laid at the feet of America that's not the point. But the US has a slightly unfortunate habit of referring to itself as the leader of the world. Now if you do that very often, let us say 50 times a day, it may happen that some people believe it and you attract attention. It would be in the US interest to disperse that leadership a little bit. It may be that others would say, "No for heaven's sake, keep it; you are the leader! You are the leader! You are the leader!" for obvious reasons that I'll not elaborate.

Globalization free zones would be politically the same as the Kyoto Protocol, with the Third World as exempted from the strictures of the Kyoto Protocol. In other words there is the idea that there are measures that have to be taken, but some parts of the world are more fitting for these measures than others.

The reason why 100,000 people die per day cannot be covered by the term globalization but it can be covered by the term monetization. If you earn less than $1 per day, and that's the case for 1.7 billion people, you cannot buy land; you cannot buy seeds; you cannot buy water; you cannot buy artificial fertilizers; you cannot buy access to a hospital if all the medical services have been privatized. And the combination of globalization and privatization means monetization. If you don't have it, you don't get it. {27:04}

So what do you do? You buy a bottle of coke and one cigarette. You use those in order to soften the hunger pains and you die. Now if 100,000 persons do that, be not surprised if some negative feelings arise at some point. That's every day. That's between 30 and 40 million per year. If each one leaves behind 10 persons who are bereaved ? most of them illiterate, often apathetic, very poor, don't be surprised if some of them develop slightly negative feelings.

So these are 7 measures; they can all be done. They are all possible. And they would cost considerably less than $40 billion for warfare. Can I guarantee that they will solve the problem? I cannot. But I can guarantee the other approach will not do it.

So let us then go into diagnosis and prognosis, since I have indicated what I think would be a solution the therapy.

The diagnosis then, is that this is a chain of retaliation in a conflict that has lasted for very many years. But let me take 1945 as a point of departure. And the name of the conflict is class struggle. It is class struggle between countries and between people. It is not "Clash of Civilizations". If the US had been engaged in clash of civilizations against Islam, mosques would have been hit. The basic cultural sites of Islam would have been hit. Instead, what the US consistently has done in Muslim countries has been to hit countries that have been a little bit progressive, and progressive people within non progressive countries. By progressive I mean people who are working for distribution of the wealth and who are working for satisfaction of the basic needs at the bottom. One example of a slightly progressive regime, in spite of its dictatorship, was Iraq. One example of a very progressive group inside Iraq was Basrah. It was Basrah that was hit and not Baghdad. Basrah is a major town in southern Iraq. {30:00}

Now I see 4 stages, or if you will, 4 clusters in this class struggle. Cluster #1 was in Asia, cluster #2 in Latin America, cluster #3 in the Muslim world, cluster #4 in the Orthodox world. So let me try to take it.

In the first cluster the arenas were Korea, Vietnam, Iran, and Indonesia. In Korea, the struggle was over unification of a nation that had been brutally divided. In Iran, it was over nationalization of oil and the claim that the proceeds from the processing should accrue to Iran. In Vietnam, it was over very poor southeast Asian peasants wanting unification of the country and independence from foreigners, their own dignity, and their own means of livelihood. In Indonesia, it was very much the same. All these 4 cases were wrapped together into the formula of "Communism and Soviet Expansion". The decisive analysis of it was made by a former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, "In Retrospect" ? an indispensable book and a book which actually says it all.

Now the second cluster was in Latin America. It consisted of Marxist students from universities in some kind of highly tenuous alliance with small peasants, small workers' cooperatives, trade unionists. {31:50} It was highly problematic. Symbols like Cuba's Che Guevara, Maoism. It was sometimes defined as Soviet Expansionism, but was more often defined as Marxists subversion. So you can say that the basic slogan under which the counterattack took place was Marxism rather than Communism.

The third cluster was against Muslim countries. The perennial factor has been Palestine and the inability to give support to the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood and dignity. But added to that came the Iranian Revolution; the possibility and potential and effort to use Iraq to beat the Iranian Revolution. But then Saddam Hussein turned against the US at the end of that war, leading to extreme hatred of Saddam Hussein. The utter stupidity ? dictatorship and fascist tendency ? of Saddam Hussein in his attack on Kuwait. And then finally the atrocities in the way that struggle was fought. And the next step is Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the basic thing that happened was the use of Afghanistan to beat the Soviets. The architect of it was Zbigniew Brezinski. Two million Afghanis lost their lives. After 10 years the result was not only that the Soviet Union withdrew, but it was the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union found its Vietnam. Now there are many of us who think the Soviet Union disintegrated for other reasons. The Afghanis are convinced that they were the major reason. So if they claim 95% of the honor, I as an analyst would give them about 45%. But that doesn't matter much. The point is that nobody ever thanked them. They didn't get one word of gratitude from the West. This has left a bitterness in Afghanis of all kinds ? top to bottom ? which is most unspeakable. Here you enlist us, you use us, you give us weapons, yes. And after we do the job, because it was a ground forces job, it was not a job that could be done with Stinger missiles, after all of that, we don't even get a word of thanks.
Now that was that stage. In that stage the Taliban, that were supported by Pakistan and carriers of Saudi Arabian doctrine and the offshoot of the Mujahideen supported by the US, and they themselves trained by the CIA, came into existence.

Where does Bin Laden fit into this? I don't know. I know that he is from Saudi Arabia. I know his speech, which I think is a very important document and should be read by everybody. And in that speech I would like to pick out one thing. And the sentence is the following. I myself am amazed, since I was in the US when this happened, that I haven't seen one single commentary on what I think is the most important sentence holding the key to the whole thing.

So it is the following:

"Our nation, the Islamic world, has been tasting humiliation and degradation for more than 80 years, its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked, and no one hears and no one heeds."

Now that was a self ? fulfilling prophecy maybe. More than 80 years brings us back to the period between 1915 and 1920. That means when the Arab nation was encouraged by the allies, meaning England, France, and Italy, to arise against Ottoman rule; the Ottomans being allies with Germany. They did; they succeeded: the Ottoman Empire was defeated. Germany was defeated. And the reward they got was English, French and Italian colonization, and the "right of return" for the Jews. Now one cannot do such things. I, being fairly well at home in the Arab and Islamic world, I cannot travel any place and find anybody ? a school child ? who doesn't know about this and the Sykes/Picot treason of 1916 . The amazing thing is how few people in the West know it. And particularly amazing is their inability to take up this point. It should then be noticed that the 15th of November 1988, the Palestine National Council nevertheless declared a two state solution as a possibility. In other words conceding the right of an Israeli state. I concur that's a very small thing but they did not give any right for a British state, a French state, or an Italian state, but a Jewish state.

So that was then. Accept that as a fact of life, it's a part of the Middle East. I think the apology for the Sykes/Picot treason is still something that should happen. It's never too late. Now it comes from two of the most arrogant countries in the world, England and France. I think more arrogant than the US, and that has to do with the following. England and France are ruled by aristocrats whose arrogance is very very deep. At the top of the US there are some people who have some doubts. That doubt is unknown in the French foreign ministry. It doesn't even appear in dreams.
Now, having said that one could quote more from that speech. The load is heavy.

So I repeat, this is class struggle. And I repeat again, it's not clash of civilizations. So how do I define class? I have 4 dimensions of class. I define class as the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. Class and power to me are identical terms. There are 4 types of power: political power, economic power, military power, and cultural power. Political power: who decides over whom. Military power: who kills whom. Economic power: who exploits whom. Cultural power: who encodes whom. There is no doubt that we're dealing with a one ? way relationship here in all essentials. Nor do I think it is very difficult to imagine that there's a limit to how far one can go along those lines. My problem is not to explain September 11th; my problem is to explain why it didn't happen before. And I can almost challenge anybody to try to explain it. You can say they tried, but it took some time to concoct that particular way of doing it.

So, if you now assume 11 million killed and 500 million hating Washington, doesn't that mean that he who says it, namely I, am anti ? American? No. I with hand on heart say exactly what so many people around the world say, "I love America and I hate Washington's foreign policy." It's extremely totally possible; not the slightest contradiction. I can detest Quisling and I can love my own country, Norway. I can dislike Hitler and Naziism without being anti ? German. It's entirely possible. You need 2 cells in your brain to think that thought. If you had only one cell it becomes too complicated. In that case you will issue a certificate for anti ? Americanism, a little bit prematurely. {40:43}

So having said that, let us now go into prognosis . What will happen? Well, I have said there are essentially two discourses; the two ways of considering of what happened. The one is to say they are simply evil, they are dead terrorists. They have no motive. They will continue killing and destroying regardless of what grievances are redressed. Moreover, if you redress a grievance, you are encouraging more terrorism. So let me now give, let us say, 5% credence to that statement. And let me give 90% to the one I believe in, a chain of retaliation within a class struggle. That leaves me with 5%. Two alternatives: Some forces within the US brought it upon themselves.

So there is the idea of CIA plot against Pentagon; out of old rivalries. I find it slightly cranky. But on the other hand, I was in the US when the Oklahoma Federal Building was bombed, and remember it very well. And all kinds of Washington experts came on TV and said it's typical Middle East terrorism. One ambassador came and said, "I see the signature of Middle East terrorism in it, and the only approach is to find which country it is and bomb it, as usual, into the stone age." Which is the destination point, where Afghanistan has been for a long time, so there is no distance to go with that one. Now it turned out to be the Midwest, not the Middle East but the Midwest, from which part of the United States Timothy McVeigh hailed.

<"He's a New Yorker", a comment from the crowd>

Yes, but he came, before he did that he came from the Midwest. And he is a New Yorker originally so that means a very extensive bombing campaign inside the US in order to teach them a lesson. Now that has not been proposed and shouldn't be proposed, but it is a little bit important to think the thought just to see the insanity of that way of thinking.

So having said that, there is one little point that should be made very explicit. The destructive power of the US is of course much, much greater than the destructive power of something I will call the "Other Side". I will just call it not US, but OS ? other side ? since I don't know what it is. I would not underestimate the solidarity among these 4 clusters opposing the US. And the Orthodox cluster, by the way, is the war against Serbia, against the orthodox part of Macedonia, and I am afraid that the common target is Russia. Read Brezinski, "The Great Chess Game" about that one. Don't underestimate the solidarity and that one group may feel they act on behalf of all 4.

Now the US destructive power is immense; the other side's is much less. But the US vulnerability is also immense, and the other side's vulnerability is much less. So if from the destructive power of the US, you subtract the vulnerability, maybe the equation runs the other way. And maybe what happened on September 11th was the dawning realization that the strongest is not necessarily the mightiest. That the sum total of the vulnerability could make for a chain of retaliation that could go on, for instance, 196 years. Now 196 years could be the upper estimate that is jihad #1 against the Crusades. And George Bush mentioned the word crusade, which was very, very unwise. It was attempted to eliminate it by going to a mosque the day after. It's not quite sure that that really effaced the image left behind by the word crusade. Now the lower estimate would be 10 years, which is the duration of jihad #3. There have, as far as I understand, only been 3 great jihads. There have many small jihads. Against the Crusades, 196 years. Against Zionism, so far undecided. Against Communists in Afghanistan, 10 years. The Muslims won #1 and 3. {45:40}

So let us then say that it will last between 10 years and 196 years using history as a guide. Under what condition will that jihad be released? Under condition that it is perceived as a war against Islam. Under what condition will it be perceived as a war against Islam? Well that is exactly the distinction between police action and military action. If these actions had been mandated ? not by the Security Council ? but by the World Court and consisted of 100,000 international soldiers who would simply have gone through Afghanistan from one corner to the other the way a police guard fans through a forest, hunting for those responsible, arraigned them into court, exposing them to due process of law, this would not be seen as a war against Islam. The way it is turning out, it is just at the border point. Add to that country, bombing of Iraq, the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, some additional bombing in Libya and Sudan and the measure is more than full. This is playing with extreme dangers. In other words, the prognosis is not very positive. {47:00}

So let us then take the prognosis of the other course of action. My prognosis would be that if those 7 policies were enacted, a couple of hundred million Muslims would embrace the United States of America. There would be embraces all the way. Even in a sense for less than the kind of thing I said, but you see, it's not a question of parcels of food, it's a question of acknowledging that you have a point. We have got the message. We understand. We have done something wrong. We are apologizing for something. We are moving some steps.

Would that then come to the hard core: Those who may be so deep frozen in their hatred that there is nothing the US can do that would move them? I don't know. There might be such a residual hard core. I'll not leave it out as a possibility, but I would think they would be very isolated. And I would think they would have their own turn against them. I do not think that that necessarily is the case today. Which is one reason why bin Laden has not been handed over. {48:26}

A little trimming of his beard and he could hide among the 2 million in the immediate diaspora. If he extends the diaspora as 4 million, he could trim his beard a little bit further, maybe do something to the hair too and he would probably be relatively difficult to recognize. He may have other strategies considerably wiser than what I suggest, at any rate I find it utterly stupid to add to the stupidity of the word terrorism the stupidity of pinning it on one person. That's an excess of Western Individualism. The construction does not tell well about the IQ level of those who construct it. Frankly speaking, it's an insult to talk to the world like that. {49:10}

So let's now go one step further and I come to the end. The end is reconciliation. Reconciliation means stepping out of the chain of retaliation, and there are reconciliatory moves to be done on both sides. The major ones will have to come from the US and the West that supported it. Some will have to come from the rest, because the class structure is:

US
the West
and the rest.

The model of reconciliation that I have in mind is what Germany did following the Second World War. Germany went through 4 stages. The first stage was to say, "Yes we may have done something wrong, but think of Hamburg and think of Dresden." This is the stage that the US is in right now. To focus on Ground Zero to the extent that thinking of what US might have done is forbidden.

You can not even buy that thinking with a check of 10 million dollars . The thinking is rejected together with the check. Now you can say that is an extreme case. You can say it was therefore an act of bribery, and there was a little element of bribery in it. Nor am I quite sure that I would be so happy about the signature on that check, for reasons I have indicated. {50:47}

Maybe the US has been beaten. Maybe that is what has happened. Namely because the vulnerability factor has come into life and if one mobilizes the jihad from the other side, 1.2 billion Muslims are in principle obliged to defend their faith by the sword. The Koran forbids them from spreading the faith by the sword but obliges them to defend it by the sword. That does not mean that all the 1.2 billion will do that. Now imagine that 1% does it, and it's already quite a heavy number. That heavy number is more than enough, multiplied by the world vulnerabilities. That vulnerability is not protected by security guards. It is only protected by a basic change of society: by moving into caves and desert oases and underground shelters. That's not going to happen. Maybe that is a key factor, that's the reason why so many people say, "..that the world will never be the same again." So I just put it on the table as an hypothesis.

Point 2: the idea that it took so much time. Maybe that time can be sped up. Maybe the Germans were slow. Maybe also that the best side of America turns up, and that there would be millions and millions and millions of Americans who would actually understand the kind of thing that I as a European am saying. At that point, let me quote my taxi driver this morning. And of course the perennial mistake made by everybody coming to a country is to use the taxi driver as the final arbiter. I am not doing that. I'm just talking about one taxi driver. And he said, when he established that I was European,
"How are you guys in Europe thinking about that thing?"

(He called it "that thing": "So how are you guys in Europe thinking about that thing?") So I said: "For me it's difficult to talk on behalf of all us guys in Europe, but I can tell you how this particular guy thinks. I think it was horrible, a crime against humanity, and the US has to change its foreign policy." Now at this point he turned around and almost drove into the ditch and he said:

"Baby", he said, looking at me, "God bless you!"

Now it's not so often I'm called baby and not so many people are calling God to bless me, so we stretched out our hands and I reciprocated and I said, "Baby ? colleague ? I'm sure that God would bless you too. Now, how are you guys thinking about it?"

So he was not so quite clear exactly who are "you guys".

"But let us say", so I said, "people like you."

He said, "Just the same, Baby."

Don't be so sure of the public opinion polls. It's a veneer draped over lots of deep thinking, sensitive, sensible people. How does that come out? That comes out through what would probably happen: a peace movement north ? south even bigger than the east ? west peace movement. And it is gradually taking its shape and will take its shape more and more the more the absurdities are coming out in the clear.

The way it works politically I know because it's very simple. And I said it yesterday in the Canadian town of Hamilton, which has a very active peace movement. And the day before I had been giving this talk in the Foreign Ministry in Ottawa to 50 of the top diplomats, Canadians, and the way I put it was that:

The way it works is the following: The governments are not so massive as they look.

They have their doubts, but they are afraid of the US and some of them are in deep genuine sympathy.

Most of them are afraid. Because the US has said that those who are not with us are against us and if you get on the "Against" list, you are on the "Hit" list. And it is in a sense the task of you as a government not to be on that list. It doesn't mean that you agree, but you sign some declaration and things of that kind. That means that you have a lot of hypocrites in the government. A lot of people who say one thing and think a totally different thing.

And the way it happens then would be a Canadian foreign minister who says in Washington,

"I agree completely with what you do but I have all these troublesome people in Hamilton. Can't you be a little bit softer so I can tell people in Hamilton that I can tone down a little bit?" {55:55}

So imagine you get hundreds of such statements. That has an impact.

And that was exactly the way it happened at the end of the cold war. In other words, the movement, the demonstrations being used as an alibi for the politician who thinks the same way, but cannot say it. So that's extremely important.

So I stop at that point, and I then leave it open. Sorry it has lasted a little bit long but that's not my fault; it's because the topic is so extensive.

So thank you so much.