Like many people, I have only experienced the disaster of Sept. 11 vicariously, through the electronic and paper media. It seems guilty to affirm that one of the images that went through my head as I saw the Trade Center burn was an image of my stock portfolio, gone in a microsecond as each tower collapsed into a heap of rubble and the human cost made itself horribly clear, live on CNN. Yet other people's pain would strike me in a very real way the following Monday.
Reality struck on Monday when the final accounting of this calamity reared its ugly head on Wall Street. Hundreds of billions of dollars in market value were erased. The prospect of billions spent on aviation security and even more monies spent on non-productive intelligence and military expenditures could not be avoided. Coupled with those dollars is the actual cost that security inflicts on the U.S. economy. Business travelers will continue to lose productivity as they're forced to arrive earlier for flights and must seek costly alternatives such as executive aircraft rather than scheduled air travel. Increased security at America's borders will require firms using imported components to build up costly inventory or use more expensive domestic components when foreign components cannot be delivered on time.
Somehow the economic cost of Sept. 11th seems to have been lost in theemotion of the last few weeks. Denying it, however, will not make it go away. We can't simply use patriotic rhetoric to cover up for the very real damage to the American economy. Yet even the nuts-and-bolts plans that the resourceful citizens of our great Republic are developing only distribute the costs among the various class of American citizens rather than recovering costs from an external source. For instance, President Bush is already asking for a $100 billion stimulus plan for the U.S. economy, which, if financed through debt, will drive interest rates up, costing every business and mortgage payer. Another example of redistributing costs rather than recovering costs is found in how airline CEOs are deferring their own salaries and manufacturers are not laying people off. Such measures force the CEOs and firm shareholders to increase their undeserved share of the costs.
The bottom line is that there's no free lunch in the U.S. economy. Our economic way of life will be unavoidably altered due to Sept. 11. No American deserves to bear these costs.
Itis our right to seek external compensation from all those associated with this act. I applaud the Bush administration's sweeping regulations on U.S. commerce with those who bankroll terrorism; yet we can do more. Active confiscation and diversion of these funds into accounts designed to cover all of the excess costs of Sept. 11 needs to be done and done publicly. And just as all of America, not just the 6,000-odd victims, suffered, we need to cast a wide net in our search for remedy, not limiting our purview to simply al-Qaeda. The drug lords who support the Taliban are fair game. So are the financial institutions who assisted in their money laundering. So are the personal assets of those friendly to al-Qaeda. All of these individuals bear some measure of liability for Sept. 11. And all of these need to bear the costs of their actions.
Even governments are fair game. If, as it appears likely, U.S. forces or U.S. proxies defeat the Taliban, America must dictate a fair peace that recognizes America's suffering while at the same time denying the country as a breeding ground for terrorism. There must be no wide-eyed charity for Afghanistan -- only trade and investment that benefits the United States and the Afghan populace until America's wounds are healed. Paradoxically, healing America's wounds through Afghanistan requires that America invest in Afghanistan in order to extract its due. Arrangements should be made for the U.S. economy to be adisproportionate beneficiary in Afghanistan's growth. For instance, the concession on Afghan mineral extraction should exclusively go to U.S. firms for the next 10 years. If Afghanistan could become another Malaysia, a center for low cost manufacturing to serve the Gulf states, it only seems fair to exclude non-U.S. firms. By the time that U.S. firms have repatriated sufficient profits, Afghanistan will almost certainly have developed into a much more modern state than the one which harbored those committed an act of war against the U.S. in 2001.
Such an approach differs from the revanchism of 1919 at Versailles. It does not hobble Afghan industry but rather builds it up. And when one thinks about it, Afghanistan is someday destined to lurch into modernity; when itdoes itis destined to be dependent on foreign capital. What does it matter that there is only one country reaping all of the benefits and repatriating the profits? Who else has a better right to benefit from Afghanistan's economic revitalization than first the Afghans -- who benefit from the infrastructure -- and then the Americans, whodeservesomething tantamount togarnishingthe paycheck of their abusers? Such a notion of servitude is a formal method of healing wounds between Afghanistan and the U.S. while benefiting both. Bysupervising the Afghan economy the U.S.would also crowd out the elites of Afghanistan from establishing a foothold for dominating the country. Like Japan in 1945, the U.S. would have the opportunity to rebuild Afghanistan in its own image and benefit from its economic growth.
Fortunately, the best way to remedy America's wounds is linked to the best way to prevent terrorism. No air attacks, no SEAL raids, and no fantastic intelligence system will ever prevent an individual from intending terror against his enemies. Only by planting the seeds of liberty can the U.S. ever hope to enjoy its own fruits in peace.
