I have been impressed by your thinking ever since you were editor of Foreign Affairs (even though you chose not to run my piece advocating that NATO immediately invite Russia to become an observer member right after the fall of the Soviet Union instead of antagonizing them by incorporating such former Warsaw Pact members as Poland and Czechoslovakia).

I was again impressed by your analysis of how many of our Arab "friends" have provided the very crucible in which Islamic fundamentalists have established their training camps preparing for the World Trade Towers/Pentagon atrocities.

I wrote the following analysis of the rationale for terrorism some years ago, updating it a few months ago as news commentators began spouting about such behavior being " the irrational acts of a fringe few". As a retired US Foreign Service Officer who spent years in Arab countries, I knew that anti-American feelings were growing and were anything but the motivation of "the fringe few" Devoted Muslims see the crime, pornography, illicit sex, and drug culture of the United States as a growing danger to their own culture -- and stand amazed at how the US seems willing to see its own culture and morality destroyed by such blind "tolerance" of what a brief generation ago would have been considered (as it still is by the Muslim World) gross evil.

Having been unsuccessful in getting it published before September 11, I have again rewritten it and submit it to you as possibly holding an idea or two which you may be able to adapt for a future column, possibly bring increased comprehension to your readers regarding the ultra rationality of such seemingly senseless acts. I have added a postscript summarizing the views of columnist Bob Lonsberry who seems among the few who grasp the fact that such Islamic fundamentalism is the kind set of anything but the crazy few -- and that is probably, for the reasons cited, represents the majority opinion of the masses in the Muslim world.

David Timmins, PhD (Harvard), FSO (ret.), Professor of Political Theory (ret.).

Contrary to the views of many, modern terrorism is anything but irrational. The notion of using terrorism as a political weapon can be traced back to a number of Eastern European political thinkers, among whom may be numbered a Russian philosopher Mikhael Bakunin. The term was first used by Paul Brousse in 1878 in response to Karl Nobiling's attempt on King Guillaume I, as a description of the theory about coupling incendiary rhetoric the most heinous conceivable concrete deeds intended to couple word and deed in a way to topple the established order through symbolizing in a tangible way the ideas of idealized socialism for the illiterate masses. While Bakunin, who died two years before Brousse came up with this telling description for his ideas, it was Bakunin who recognized that small political movements or ethnic minorities seeking to overthrow or gain freedom from the autocracies of Eastern Europe -- or otherwise rectify their situation -- had no access to the controlled media to explain their grievances or generate sympathy for their causes. For Bakunin there was but one solution. Ironically, the term's actual meaning was misinterpreted by the press into an apologia by anarchic activists for their acts of terrorism.

The notion behind The Propaganda of the Deed was that the perpetration of the most vicious, inhumane, anti-popular cultural and heinous act imaginable with the expectation that the media (at that time largely the press) would bend every effort to find out why such an apparently purposeless act could have been committed -- and by whom -- and to retail to the public the story behind the headlines -- thus publicizing the story behind the ethnic grievance, or political movement on the front pages of the world press at no cost to the movement which committed the Deed.

Bakunin's philosophical invention proved enormously productive. And relatively costless. Perpetrators of a successful act, or Propanganda of the Deed, were able to garner front page publicity for their cause which no amount of money could buy. The bombing of the heir to the Austrian throne set off World War I, opening the door for the Bolshevik success in Russia.. Hitler's Beer Hall putsch and street riots got him enough free publicity to make Nazism a viable political party in Germany, eventuating in Hitler's democratic election as Chancellor. Mao's atrocities against Kuo Min Tang supporters while leaving neutral peasants entirely harmless got him endorsements from US State Department diplomats (later causing them major grief from Senator Joe McCarthy as ComSimps). The Mao Mao terrorism in Kenya won such popular support for their cause that they were able to induce the English Crown to grant independence. Setting the example for even worse atrocities in Rhodesia which won similar sympathy in England, resulting in independence for what is now Zimbabwe. It took longer in South Africa, but "necklacing" (putting car tires filled with gasoline and burning them around the necks of government supporters), won enough stories in the foreign press sympathizing with the grievances of the Black majority, that the world was willing to overlook the gross violence of the petpetrators in favor of the story behind their grievance. And under much social pressure South Africa was turned over to Black rule (with near disasterous social and economic consequ-ences).

Think. Just a few years ago Yasser Arafat was looked upon as a wicked and evil man committing terrorist acts on the noble, long-suffering Israeli colonists. As the press has continued to hammer the Palestinian's grievances, explaining away their acts of terrorism as the "irrational acts of the few", Arafat has emerged as the Head of an all-but-independent state, is lionized by the United Nations, and has become the White House guest of Amerian Presidents. Where's the irrationality in this kind of terrorism? It is a highly successful act of statecraft.

Evil? Wicked? Yes. Irrational? Not at all. A desperate kind of rationality perhaps. But highly successful.

One wonders how such amoral super-rationality can be countered.. As a retired diplomat with thirty-seven years experience in China, Eastern Europe, and Africa --and as a post-retirement Professor of Politicsl Theory I've given the matter some thought.

Yes, it would be ideal one supposes if the media would ignore such desperate acts, thus depriving the super cynical and amoral perpetrators of free publicity. But there's no way TV or the daily or weekly press could overlook such stories. Indeed, the more outragious the Deed the better the story.

The only thing I can think of is that the media should always and without exception in telling the story behind the "Deed", include a brief description of the theory behind the Propaganda of the Deed to reveal the ulterior purpose of the perpetrators so that readers can moderate their natural sympathy for the cause with an approrpiate measure of distain for the super-cynicism and evil deliberate planning of the perpetrators.. A casual dismissal of the power of this political weapon by calling it mere "irrationality" by a few men won't do the trick. The world must understand that The Propaganda of the Deed will be a wickedly powerful and highly successful political tool until we are willing to discount the worthiness of any cause which resorts to such a weapon. And this will not happen until the media appropriately explain the theory behind such immoral acts.

Postscript following September 11.

It is beyond irony that even the heinous act of Osama Bin Laden's minions driving high-jacked 747s through both New York's World Trade Towers (and the Pentagon) has had just the perverse effect outlined above, giving supportive publicity to Arab grievances instead of focussing on the evil of the act. The Propaganda of the Deed triumphs again! Columnist Bob Lonsberry appears alone in having identified how an act of such horrific magnitude seems to have perversely advanced Bin Laden's cause. Says Lonsberry:

Begin quote: "Let's be honest about Islam. Personally I think American sensitivity raining is getting [ out of hand]. Our national tragedy has been turned into Muslim Appreciation Month and . . . If I have to hear one more sanctimonious lecture about how Islam is a peace-loving religion, I'thmk I'm going to explode. Now even non-Islamic Sikhs and Hindus are demanding equal time! Stop the brainwashing.

No more opportunistic and self-righteous propaganda please!. If we want a lecture on Islam, buy the book. And if we've forgotten what we learned in our high school diversity seminar we know where to go for help. But this presumption that Americans are intolerant bigots is so contrary to the facts is to me a purposeful distortion. (DBT note: this is the whole point of Bakunin's Propaganda of the Deed. Such acts are intended to enlist the power of the press to retail the story of the "grievance" which "caused" such apparently senseless acts. Back to Lonsberry). "It is no longer credible to accept these earnest assertions that Islam condemns violence when literally millions of Muslims in the Middle East claim otherwise. The battle to define Islam is not being fought in the American mind, it is being fought in the Muslim mind -- and the moderates and peaceful folk are losing. And that's too bad, because Islam is a beautiful religion. At least some ways of following it are. But the fact is that fundamentalist Islam with its violence and bigotry is raging through the Middle East and may actually be the largest denomination of that religion. And the Americans lecturing us about the their peaceful religion represent nothing more than an endangered and dwindling faction.

And a cowardly one. Because condemnation of Osama Bib Laden, extremist Muslim nations, the tyranny of the mullahs and of Islamic oppression of women, Christians, Jews and Blacks, has been amazingly lacking.