University President Henry Bienen during a panel discussion Wednesday night in Coon Forum responded to the recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington by calling for military reform and international multilateral action against the terrorists.
“The way to attack decentralized terrorist organizations is to have the cooperation of many states,” Bienen said. “This cataclysmic attack made it clear to the Bush administration that it needs allies.”
Seven members of the political science department joined Bienen to discuss the aftermath of the attacks with more than 250 freshmen, upperclassmen, graduate students and other professors.
Bienen spoke out against appeasement, saying that not acting in the wake of the attacks could have serious consequences.
“I believe in national honor,” he said. “I don’t think any society that has power can be a passive recipient (of such attacks).”
Bienen also said the attacks could have positive results for U.S. relations with countries in the Middle East in the long run.
“Paradoxically, this attack will make a big impact on the negotiations between Israel and Palestine,” he said.
Bienen is Northwestern’s senior expert on international relations and was scheduled to speak in New York on Wednesday until the event was canceled because of the attacks. He said the panel was only an initial step in addressing the tragedy.
“I’m hoping the university will have a series of events and panels that will answer these questions in more complex detail,” he said.
Professors also voiced opinions from diverse perspectives, ranging from an analysis of the Taliban to NATO’s historic declaration of unity in its response to the attack.
Prof. Edward Gibson moderated the discussion from a panel that included Profs. Benjamin Page, William Reno, Risa Brooks, Ian Hurd and Amy Searight, and Lecturer Brian Hanson.
Page offered a summation of the panel’s response, calling for humane action, international cooperation, a balance of personal freedom and national security needs, and the creation of an international legal order.
“The effectiveness of the response is going to be inseparable from sound moral principles in the response,” Page said.
Brooks said the United States needs to rethink its foreign policies and reconfigure its allies and treaties. She challenged NU’s incoming students to take initiative in molding the United States’ response to the attacks.
“(Freshmen) have to make the decisions as citizens about what we’re going to do,” she said.
The panel replaced a scheduled lecture about U.S.-Latin American relations with Gibson. Weinberg’s Asst. Dean for Freshmen Lane Fenrich and Political Science Department Chairwoman Susan Herbst helped coordinate the changed event in light of the attacks.
“We have a lot of expertise on campus about international affairs,” Herbst said about the effectiveness of the panel.
Weinberg senior Sucheta Misra said that during the past week she thought the media had encouraged an immediate response to the attacks, but she believed the panel called for a more level-headed approach.
“This panel of speakers takes a more moderate, more realistic and more moral view of what retaliation means,” she said.
Other discussions focused on the backlash against Muslims in the United States and throughout the world and the negative perception of the United States by other nations.
“There’s a fundamental message for us,” said Frank Sutton, a Weinberg freshman. “We can’t look at this and say we don’t know why this occurred. The answer is there.”
For the final question posed to the panel, Weinberg senior Mutasim Sunbulli asked, “What is the long-term solution?”
“I don’t know,” Hurd replied.
