The root of terrorism and how to deal with its consequences was discussed during last night’s forum, “Confronting Terrorism: Understanding Why and Where we go from Here.”

Terrorism is violence used against innocent people for the sake of achieving political objectives, said Tomis Kapitan, doctor of philosophy at NIU. Kapitan began the forum by addressing President Bush’s question,” Why do they hate us?”

He discussed the discontentment of foreign countries and Middle Easterners with American foreign policies.

Kapitan listed a number of examples of such policies.

– In 1953, the U.S. helped to overthrow the government in Iran and establish a brutal monarchy.

– America supports Saudi Arabia because of its oil investment even though Saudi Arabia has the worst human rights in the world.

The U.S. supports Israeli occupation of Arab land and has given $3 billion of foreign aid annually in the past 20 years toward Israel’s economics and military.

UNICEF has reported that 90,000 children a year in Iraq die because of a lack of water sanitation, food and medicine, Kapitan said, and before 1990, Iraq had one of the best health care systems. Kapitan attributed the 90,000 deaths to the U.S. embargo because it negatively impacts the import of proper medical supplies.

Kapitan’s hypothesis of why the Sept. 11 attacks took place is to provoke a massive U.S. military response of destabilizing U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Kapitan said that ignoring the causes and dehumanizing the enemy, “could prove catastrophic for the Middle East and U.S. interest and, indeed, every human being on the planet.”

Assad Busool, professor and chairman of the department of Arabic studies in Chicago, started off with the Islamic greeting, ” Asalam alaikum”, translated as ‘peace be on you’. His role was to give an Islamic perspective and first defined Islam and Allah.

“According to the Qur’an, Islam means peace with honor and dignity but without aggression,” Busool said. He went on to explain that the word ‘Allah’ is the Islamic reference to God.

Busool also addressed the misrepresented term ‘jihad’.

“Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein’s jihad is not jihad,” he said. “Jihad is self-restraint and time for developing one’s soul and body to endure one’s hardships.”

Busool explained how we fight against crime in society.

“As citizens and as Muslims, it’s incumbent on us to combat all social evils,” he said. “Bin Laden and his group are in no way representatives of Islam in any shape or form. Fighting violence with violence won’t get bin Laden. Bombing is counterproductive.”

Rev. Joe Gastiger, pastor at the Congregational Church, provided a Christian perspective to the forum. He thought that war is an apocalyptic attempt to solve political issues.

“This is a struggle with a religion that doesn’t have a name,” he said. This struggle dates back to Babylonian times, and he explained that in terrorism the victims feel abused and they seek blame, retaliation and vindication. Gastiger thinks that this aggression is physiological.

He addressed the possibility of a resolution.

“Age-old hatreds are not impossible to solve,” he said. “A good example is South Africa and many other countries in the world.”

Daniel Kempton, chair for the political science department, discussed strategies to combat terrorism. This is a war against terrorism, then what are the things we can do to win, he asked. Kempton then listed four strategies against terrorism.

He advised Americans to not give in to terrorist demands because the country should not allow more attacks. He also said terrorism has existed during every era and it’s more prominent because technological advances have made it easier.

The second strategy is engaging in retaliatory attacks. When implementing such attacks, it‘s important to minimize the loss of civilian life while maximizing the loss of terrorism.

The third strategy involves domestic defense. Negativity toward this strategy is costly, reduces civil liberties and only limits terrorism’s effects because there are many options for terrorists.

The fourth strategy creates new international agreements.

“There’s no clear strategy for the combat of terrorism against terrorism,” Kempton said.

Lyndon Perkins, admissions administrator, asked the panelists why can’t the evidence concerning bin Laden’s involvement in the attack be publicized?

Kempton said a U.S. court has already indicted bin Laden for previous felonies and wasn’t bothered by the fact that the evidence is not revealed.

Kapitan disagreed. He said that in a democratic country such as ours, Americans have a right to know.

Melissa Griffin, a senior criminal justice major, said that the forum shed a personal light on the attack.

“It was nice to hear what people here thought about it,” she said.

Nicholas Koenig, a sophomore history and political science major, found the forum informative.

“Some of the perspectives on who is at fault is interesting,” he said.

Evie Zuroske, program coordinator of the honors program, knew that the forum was important for students.

“We wanted to create an additional discussion on terrorism and the effects its having,” she said. “I think it’s important especially now since we’re bombing Afghanistan. We want to give direction to the jumbled thoughts that everyone is having and feeling.”