“The American Response to Terrorism,” an interdisciplinary panel discussion hosted by the Political Science Club, was held in the Knights Room of Pius XII Memorial Library on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 5 p.m.

The three departments participating in this event were Communication, Philosophy and Political Science, and the professors representing the departments were Peggy Bowers, John Kavanaugh, S.J., and Jean-Robert Leguey-Feilleux, respectively.

The moderator for this discussion was the Political Science Club faculty adviser and professor in the department, Ellen Carnaghan.

In a brief introduction by Political Science club member Beth Fortune, the guidelines for what each professor would be discussing were presented to the audience of faculty, staff and students. Bowers addressed the media coverage of the attacks, Kavanaugh focused on how ethics plays a role in the response and Leguey-Feilleux covered the government’s response to the attacks.

Leguey-Feilleux was the first of the panel members to speak, commenting that this was “a different phenomenon to address.”

Leguey-Feilleux said, “The problem is, in general, that public opinion wants a simple solution,” and he said that this is not a situation that lends itself to being easily reconciled.

The first response of the American government to the attacks of Sept. 11 was that this was war, said Leguey-Feilleux, but, “This is rhetoric-you don’t wage war against terrorism.” He said, “You cannot root out terrorism. It is easy to commit.”

According to Leguey-Feilleux, there are more than 110 active revolutionary movements throughout the world, many of which resort to terrorist activities. It is virtually impossible to eliminate them all.

Most terrorist movements are “widespread, well-organized and patient,” said Leguey-Feilleux, but he noted that each time one person is arrested, evidence is discovered or secrets are revealed that lead to another arrest. This process is terribly slow and seemingly never-ending, but Leguey-Feilleux said, “You don’t take care of terrorism once and for all.” This will prove to be a long and arduous task, he cautioned.

Leguey-Feilleux provided the audience with some background information on terrorism, saying that Middle East revolutionary groups began to hijack planes in 1968 “to bring attention to their plights,” and copying hijackings occurred around the world. “Bin Laden is more dangerous for us because he doesn’t have an approximate political objective. His movement is a global movement, to go after industrial societies that he sees as corrupting Islamic regimes, especially Saudi Arabia,” Leguey-Feilleux said.

Leguey-Feilleux does not think that bin Laden is trying to take over the U.S. government, but rather he wants to humiliate the U.S. government by showing his disciples that it can be done. Leguey-Feilleux pointed out that there are approximately 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and only a minute fraction of them are fundamentalists, but bin Laden aims to reach as many as he can to broaden his fight.

“I was surprised by the slow, and it seems deliberate, way in which Bush was trying to move to counter this action,” said Leguey-Feilleux. He also said that under horrible circumstances, it is best that the United States realizes that it needs a coalition.

Kavanaugh spoke next, beginning his talk by citing a guest of Diane Reams’ of PBS, saying, “It’s all relative.” Kavanaugh said, “Bin Laden thinks that what he is doing is right, and we think what we’re doing is right.”

Kavanaugh spoke of the conscience and how everyone’s conscience is different. “I propose that if [bin Laden] is following his conscience, then his conscience is profoundly perverted,” Kavanaugh said.

He then quoted what he called a great English writer, “Sure, follow your conscience, but make sure it’s not the conscience of an ass.” Kavanaugh presented a call for everyone to keep his or her conscience in check. “We all need extreme vigilance about our own conscience, our moral judgment, because there’s a great danger to only use evidence to support our prejudice.”

Kavanaugh said that this problem of distorting evidence to fit our personal agendas is a problem for all human beings. “We need to challenge our subjective perspective.” Kavanaugh cited several instances in which commentators and representatives of the media misused their positions as being the media outlets to the public to voice their individual consciences.

Kavanaugh included examples, from an Arab newspaper editor to writers for The New Yorker, Time magazine, The New York Observer, The Washington Post and The New York Post, to anchors and reporters for Fox News and CNN, and liberals to conservatives. These people “are totally (subjectifying) the truth . by putting it through their own grid,” Kavanaugh said.

Comments made by these sources ranged from derogatory remarks to harsh and uneducated criticisms of terrorist-related subject matter, and Kavanaugh mentioned how one journalist from The New York Observer had demanded that countries that contain terrorists should be destroyed. Kavanaugh pointed out that the FBI estimates that at least 1,000 terrorists reside in the United States, so if this reporter’s perspective is to be properly applied, then America should be destroyed too.

Kavanaugh said that we shouldn’t hold ourselves to a different standard than that to which we hold everyone else: “If we expect that of other people, then we must expect it of ourselves.”

Bowers began her discussion by saying that the Sept. 11 attacks “called the press to a higher standard . and made the press examine their role more closely.”

She said that the reporting initially followed the conventional framework of an “unfolding disaster story,” but then, as it became obvious that this was beyond the scope of an accidental disaster, questions erupted because such an event was unprecedented.

“What do we call the remains of the Twin Towers? Rubble? A grave site? How do we represent the bodies-do we show them, or not show them? What do we say about the dead and or missing individuals?”

Bowers presented these questions to the audience, pointing out that the media had to answer these questions immediately and that there was no definitive right or wrong answer. The media figures were going through the same emotional process as the public; they were asking themselves the same questions as everyone else, they just had to do it in front of the world. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, The New York Times has created a special section that contains stories related to the terrorist attacks.

Bowers mentioned how the media is ritualizing the grief process that they are coaching the nation through one step and onto another, and through their reporting they are reinforcing certain cultural values.

After Bowers finished her discussion, the three professors commented on each other’s discussions and provided further insight. The panel then fielded questions from the audience and also responded to comments from audience members.

The Saint Louis University community responded well to this panel discussion. The Knights Room was nearly full with interested faculty, staff and students, and there was never a lack of questions. Senior Yaoska Tijerino attended the panel discussion.

She said, “I liked the fact that [the panel members] were against irrational retaliation and that they spoke of factors in this situation that the public does not know about or overlooks.”