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Europe is a target

Europeans know more about the United States than we know about most other European countries - the same would be true for many people in the rest of the world. Yet did you did get the impression when you were here, that the Europeans were listening right around 9/11 and then they tired from it - simply. There was a fatique and a need for the media and public opinion to move elsewhere? 

DH: I don't know if they tired - sometimes you tire of a topic, but I think it was a combination of factors. I think the fact that the attacks simply didn't happen in Europe had a huge impact on how people feel about it. 

Secondly, I think that the Bush administration in the campaign against Afghanistan turned down European help also led many to say, well, this is America's war and we're not being asked to be engaged. I think that was a huge mistake on the part of the Bush administration. 

And the third element is I think, after the campaign in Afghanistan, starting with the President's State of the Union speech two years ago, I think one saw in Europe an effort by this administration to sort of use September 11 to advance a particular political agenda. 

I think that the Democrats in this country also believed that September 11 was sort of being instrumentalized to advance an agenda. So the tough issue here is pulling apart the political agenda of the very conservative right-wing; neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, vs. the real issues that we face, symbolised by September 11. I think there are real issues.

I believe that the invocation of Article 5 of the NATO-treaty in response to the attack on September 11 meant, in essence, that we do have a common homeland.

And if we have a common security space -- that is what we said to each other for fifty years, after all  - shouldn't we organize ourselves, now, in that way, in response to new threats? Territorial defense, today, I would argue, does not mean preparing to defend against tanks or airplanes coming from the Soviet Union or worrying about sea-lanes being blocked by a country that no longer exists. Territorial defense in the Cold War sense should give way to a new common conception of territorial protection against sporadic attacks - or surprise attacks - by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. Those attacks could happen today, in Europe. We have clear evidence that such attacks have already been planned - they simply were stopped. The idea that Europe is not a target is simply wrong. 

One of the arguments making the rounds in Europe is that we have been used the terrorism - the IRA etc. 

DH: You really find a lot of American anger when they hear that European comment. Because, yes, one obviously has been used to terrorism - of a different type. What would be argued today is that if you join terrorism to weapons of mass destruction - or if you turn an airplane, a conventional transportation machine, into an unconventional weapon, then you have crossed the line, now, into a realm of catastrophic terrorism, for which European experience does not prepare anyone. In fact, might lead Europe into a false sense of complacency. The idea of millions dead - the entire city of Copenhagen in one blow: destroyed - is a very different prospect than kidnapping an industrialist, holding a person for ransom... 

Could it have something to do with the fact that the kind of terrorism with which Europeans are most familiar peaked in the 70s, and so there's been 20-25 years for academics and journalists to reflect on it? 

DH: Oh, I agree with that as well, in fact, that is my point: we much to learn from each other on this issue. What is interesting I think for some of us who look at this is that some countries in Europe with the terrorist experience of course built up this body of laws, over the past 25-40 years, to deal with terrorism, which actually are quite good. And that, as we scramble now --- and have this huge debate in our country about civil liberties and the Patriot Act and these things --- it would do us well to look across the oceans, see how countries that have dealt with the issues for many years have tried to strike balance between civil liberties and security. So we have something to learn: my point is that we should be working on this together.

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 Illustrationsfoto: The White House (Tina Hager)

Portrætfoto: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, The Johns Hopkins University