Whereas we were generally throwing the questions at them and other American audiences the past two weeks, this time we were made to sit before a select crowd at the Woodrow Wilson Center here to reply to their questions.
The general subject was the American responses to terrorism in the context of the bombing last Sept. 11, 2001, of the Pentagon in Virginia and the World Trade Center twin towers in New York. But any question however remotely related to terrorism was fielded.
And it was for the good, because it made possible another healthy exchange on the issues that have refused to go away.
Despite their coming from separate directions, the seven journalists have voiced a consensus on the Iraq war’s apparent lack of legal and moral basis. The convergence of opinion emerged despite their not having talked to one another about the subject before coming to the US.
A common message they carried to the American people with whom they had interacted in their journey across the country is for America to listen and not throw its weight around.
Despite their often critical view of US war policy, however, they expressed sympathy for the American victims of terrorism . They also recognized the need for Americans to defend themselves, although they did not subscribe to the validity of a preemptive strike as applied to the invasion of Iraq.
They rejected war as the first option in seeking redress and terminating sources of terrorism.
It says: "By bringing fellows from around the world to Washington, DC, encouraging discourse among disciplines and professors, and publishing the results of these activities, the Center enriches the quality of knowledge and debate in the nation’s capital and throughotut the world.
"The Woodrow Wilson Center was established by legislation in 1968 to symbolize and strengthen the fruitful relation between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.
"Created within the Smithsonian Institute, the Center has an independent board of trustees and administrator. Funding for the Center comes from annual federal appropriations private gifts and grants, and endowed income."
It might be useful to recall that Woodrow Wilson, the president after whom the Center was named, asserted international leadership in his time in building a new world order. In 1917, he proclaimed American entrance into World War I a crusade to make the world "safe for democracy."
We want to share with readers some of the points put forward in response to questions raised in the forum and in earlier discussions that we’ve had in many US cities.
For instance, who gave the US the right to invade another sovereign country halfway around the globe and which was not an imminent aggressor? Until now we have not heard a satisfactory answer to this basic question. No one in the forum offered an answer.
Why is an invasion right when it is the US that does it and wrong when it is another?
If the US invasion was in retaliation to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was it then an act of self-defense? But how can the invasion of Iraq be self-defense or in hot pursuit when it was launched nearly two years after 9/11?
Note also that none of those who crashed planes into the Pentagon and the WTC twin towers of New York, killing more than 3,000, was an Iraqi. They were mostly Saudis and there was an Egyptian.
America must address these grievances, for there lies the root of its many relationship problems. Until the root causes of such grievances are extirpated, if the US will content itself in just trimming the wayward branches, America will never find rest.
Widespread resentment, some of it taking on religious undertones, was also a natural consequence of the leader of the world’s mightiest nation calling its military offensives in foreign lands crusades, or talking of a clash of civilizations.
One is struck by the lunacy of it all when he sees the leader of the world’s greatest nation painting everything as either black or white, or characterizing his wars as a fight between good and evil (with the US cast as the good side), or saying that if you are not with us, you are against us, et cetera.
The basic rationale for the invasion of Iraq, for instance – which is the elimination of Saddam Hussein’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction – has not been validated.
The US is now in control of virtually every inch of ground in Iraq and has the most sophisticated gadgets for detecting hidden weapons, yet cannot find the weapons that Bush claims existed.
If he could, President Bush should work out soonest an adroit disengagement from a war whose end is not in sight.