posted 09-19-2001 13:29               

[This message has been edited by DeborahS (edited 09-19-2001).]

posted 09-22-2001 01:03               

Systems thinking could reveal much in the way of preventing a recurrence. The question is whether our leaders are brave and wise enough to act upon those insights. Or is political survival and heroism more important in influencing their decisions?

Can political structures be modified to ensure that elected leaders act together to ensure a peaceful world?

Attached Article from Washington Post:

Americans will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland," warned another major report on national security. "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers."

In a crowded Senate hearing room yesterday, former senator Gary Hart of Colorado quoted those sentences to great effect. "That conclusion was delivered on Sept. 15, 1999, almost exactly two years to the day before our prediction came true," he said.

Hart co-chaired, with former senator Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, a bipartisan commission that worked more than three years, spent $10 million and produced a three-part report called "New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century." That commission, initiated by then-President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich in a rare bipartisan truce, also urged the creation of a homeland security agency – a sweeping sort of interior ministry whose very name might have unsettled many Americans before Sept. 11.

Back in December 1997, the National Defense Panel report said: "Coastal and border defense of the homeland is a challenge that again deserves serious thought." But the idea wasn't high on anyone's to-do list. After all, the report was looking way ahead, "to meet the challenges of 2020."

As Rudman said in an interview, "We Americans have an ability to procrastinate until we get hit on the head by a 2-by-4."

"There were people who would say, 'Homeland security? What are you, nuts?'‚" recalled Antsen. "Now the thinking has changed. Now it's an agreed-to assumption."

"You've been voices in the wilderness, for the most part," Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) said at yesterday's hearing by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. "You were ahead of your time," added Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the committee's chairman.

Despite their prescience, soothsayers such as Antsen (who also worked on the Hart-Rudman report) are not chiding, "We told you so." They're heartened that their research provided a blueprint that could be quickly implemented. And by most accounts, senior Bush administration officials paid serious attention to the recommendations.

"The president put it at the top of his agenda," said Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore, who chaired an advisory panel established in 1999 to assess preparedness in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction. "This president acted within days after his inauguration to begin to go to work on the issue and to coordinate with us."

Gilmore's report included this now eerie statement: "We have been fortunate as a nation." It added, "We are impelled by the stark realization that a terrorist attack on some level inside our borders is inevitable and the United States must be ready."

But none of the recent major studies on terrorist threats specifically envisioned an attack by hijackers who would turn jetliners into bombs. "We concluded that the real weapon is not the device or the material involved, but the terrorist delivery capacity and capability," Gilmore noted in his testimony at yesterday's hearing. "Unfortunately, I am afraid that this point has been borne out by the events of Sept. 11."

The governor added in an interview, "It's not been the goal of our commission to try to dream up every possible conventional attack possible. We understand that they are limited only by the imagination of the evil mind, so it's purposeless, really, to try to analyze those things."

Though he wasn't at the hearing yesterday, Gingrich was hailed by Rudman as the "father" of the homeland security concept. Later, the former Republican congressman spoke modestly about his contributions. "Maybe the uncle," said Gingrich, giving credit to Clinton, too.

"I wouldn't say we were prescient. I would say this [Sept. 11] event is not the event we warned about, this event is the harbinger . . . ."

One morning in October 1998, Antsen and another staffer were briefing Gingrich on asymmetric theories when he urged them to read screenplays and spy novels to get ideas about what terrorists were capable of doing. Get creative, he said, since our enemies will certainly be. As Antsen noted, "The most important thing about an asymmetric attack is that you cannot identify it ahead of time."

It is designed to be unthinkable, unimaginable.

But on Sept. 11, there were those who could comprehend what had happened. That morning, Warren Rudman was heading to his Washington law office by cab, listening to National Public Radio reports. "I thought, 'Oh God, we predicted this.' I'm so sorry were were right. I felt awful. I take no satisfaction in our prediction."

posted 09-24-2001 11:08               

It strikes me that many are talking about the issues of personal respect and tolerance from a global perspective, but still drive others off the road, yell at their kids, belittle the kid's soccer ref or treat supermarket clerks like dirt. We're all hooked - the solution must be local as well as global.

posted 09-24-2001 11:28               

The (admittedly simplistic) models I’ve built in my spare time suggest that anger and certainty of beliefs drive a group to violent actions, which then builds anger and strengthens belief in the other group—which leads to actions by that group that continue the escalation. These models suggest a couple of leverage points: 1) lessen the certainty of beliefs of one or both party (e.g. decide to build a stock of tolerance) and/or 2) create other reactions besides retaliation that curb violence, but aren’t done in violence.

I’ve just downloaded and explored a learning laboratory from High Performance Systems (http://www.hps-inc.com/Terrorism_Story_Download.asp) . The mental models in this lab are similar to ones I’ve just described. I encourage anyone who wants to begin the dialogue of what structure is causing this escalating violence to download the lab and try it out. And then post your reactions to this site. You may agree or disagree with what’s there. But I’m certain the experience will sharpen your mental model about the situation, including what might be the impacts of various policies now under consideration.

And let’s continue the dialogue!

posted 09-24-2001 18:42               

quote:

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Originally posted by mpeyer:

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posted 09-30-2001 14:27               

"As your child may or may not know, much of modern Islamic fundamentalism has its roots in the writings of Sayyid Qutb, whose two-year sojourn to the U.S. in the late 1940s convinced him that Western society and non-Islamic ideologies were flawed and corrupt. Over the course of the next several decades, his writings became increasingly popular throughout the Arab world, including Afghanistan.

Patiently explain to your child that in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, outraging the U.S. Determined to stem the tide of communism, the U.S. provided Afghanistan with military support in the form of weapons and training. Among the beneficiaries of this support were many of Qutb's radical-fundamentalist adherents. These fundamentalists eventually took over Afghanistan in the form of a group called the Taliban. Militarized and radicalized by years of war, Taliban leaders turned against the U.S., which long supported them in their fight against the occupying Soviets but eventually came to be seen as the embodiment of Western immorality.

You should also let your child know that among those supported by the Taliban is Osama bin Laden, a Saudi multi-millionaire and terrorist who for years has taken refuge in encampments in the rugged hills of Afghanistan. Like his Taliban brethren, bin Laden believes that the U.S. is guilty of apostasy and should be punished accordingly.

Your child will likely ask why bin Laden is so angry at the U.S. Explain to him or her that much of his anger is rooted in the fact that, during the Gulf War, the U.S. stationed troops in Saudi Arabia, the nation that is home to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Bin Laden was further angered by America's post-Gulf War efforts to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by imposing an embargo against his nation."

posted 10-18-2001 12:25               

What would these systems thinkers propose for the U.S.?:
- Abandon support for Israel to those enemies who don't even allow for Israel's right to exist?
- Remove all sanctions on the same Saddam in Iraq who spends all of his U.N.-allowed oil revenue on palaces and military arms while his people starve (or get gassed?)
- Withdraw completely from any contact in the area? (neo-isolationist)

What kind of reinforcing feedback loop would we start if we allowed the suicide terrorists to "win" by giving into some/any of their demands to change policy? (Does anyone really think that the U.S. could do anything to appease bin Laden/Taliban/Muslim extremists who consider Americans to be Satan? Why would a rational person ever make peace with the great Satan?)

Perhaps some policy investment into the structures of the international justice system or the system of alliances to counter and root out terrorists will make more sense than just changing ourselves into something that we're not to appease people who will hate us no matter what we do.

BTW, none of the terrorists seem to acknowledge or remember that the U.S. intervened on Muslim behalf in both Bosnia and Macedonia against the nominally Orthodox Christian Yugoslavia. Muslim-centered policies made no difference in those cases.

Regards,

posted 10-24-2001 16:45               

That being said, I agree that we must always try to anticipate the consequences of our actions and, in this case, ensure that we don't seemingly reward acts of violence.

posted 10-31-2001 12:46               

Structure Drives Behaviour: Structures, viewed in systemic behavioural terms, refer to policies and procedures, mental models, and stated goals. The stated goal is quite clear - we have all heard it over and over again in all the media - to stamp out global terrorism once and for all. The way in which this goal will be accomplished has caused a shift in many policies and mental models. As a global coalition is assembled to combat terrorism, we are seeing a shift in many of the policies that governments have had in place for years. These policies include how governments 'categorise' other governments, and the process of categorisation is in reality, a demonstration of the collective mental models of how the coalition perceives who is a 'friend' and who is a 'foe.' As the coalition - whomever that may include over time - begins to formulate its response to terrorism, it will find itself in the peculiar position of treating governments that for many years were considered to be 'foes,' but in this new order, are suddenly thought of as 'friends.' This shift is based on the fact that many nations have suddenly found themselves in a situation where the world has now become binary in nature - as in the words of the President of the United States; you are either 'with us or against us.'

The Easiest Way Out Will Lead Back In: This rule refers to the fact that in most cases, people focus on problem symptoms, not the underlying problems themselves. The symptom, in the situation the world has found itself, is terrorism that drove the horrific attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, and the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C. Most certainly, this is a problem symptom that needs to be addressed, but whilst the new globally based coalition focuses on how to respond/retaliate/seek retribution for the vicious attacks, it will need to also try to step back and understand what the problem actually is that drove the behaviours that we have all witnessed. If the underlying problem is not addressed - and the world simply reacts to the problem symptom - the problem will, over time, simply manifest itself once again. Do we want a world that works together to promote peace, or do we want a world divided? As we all know, a policy of retaliation only begins to set up the dynamics of escalation, and escalation can only be resolved when there are no survivors left on our planet.

There is a Delay Between Cause and Effect: One of the reasons that we have just experienced the terrorist attack in the United States is not because a group of terrorists suddenly became angry at America on 10 September. In all reality, this attack was the result of years of planning. And, if you listen to several of the groups of people who have suddenly found themselves to explicitly be 'foes' of the coalition, the planning and subsequent attacks were a response to treatment they have received for many years. This note is not the forum to talk about the pros or cons of this type of argument, but the note has been written to address some of the dynamics that are facing the world today. Whatever the new coalition decides to do, it will need to realise that their actions will result in two types of effects - effects that are noticeable immediately, and effects that we may not see for many years. Will the coalition's response be effective? In the short-term, most probably yes. But, if we realise that there is a delay between real cause and effect, we will not know the real effect for many years. This is not dissimilar to the environmental situation the world finds itself in today - are we prepared to sacrifice our children's future for a peaceful world simply to get revenge? Perhaps. There is always a price to pay for governmental actions.

This note is not meant to be pro-coalition actions or anti-coalition actions. As an American who has been living overseas, however, it is quite apparent that there is more going on than meets the eye. Living overseas has given us the opportunity to experience many views on what has happened, what may have contributed to the event itself, and what might happen when the coalition responds. Yes, it is clear that the efforts to build a global coalition are bringing governments together to fight terrorism, which is a threat to us all. But we, as human beings who are simply stewards of this planet for our children, need to be thoughtful enough to recognise some of the unintended consequences of the coalition’s actions. Only time will tell. We hope that some of the lessons that can be learned from this experience will be remembered. It is clear that the many lessons from the past have not been. We only advocate understanding the rules that govern the behaviours of all of us.