The ‘official’ services in the wake of the September 11 attack in New York and Washington as well as the celebration at the National Cathedral portrayed a blended halo of mourning and moderation (presence of an Iman and Rabin) and a vibrant patriotic call. The mass ended to the tune of the ‘Battle of the Republic Anthem’.

Outside the United States, similar ceremonies were held. The British celebrated the Changing of the Guard playing the American Anthem on Wednesday 12, a patriotic song repeated in the official mass attended by the royalty and Mr Blair. The massive ceremony on Berlin’s Brandenburg Gates, so on and so forth around the world.

On Sunday 16 another service at the New York Saint Patrick’s Cathedral highlighted the influence of the Catholic Church, a centralized organization capable of showing such a ‘unique’ manifestation in a city of Protestants and Jews. Not only was it a religious ceremony but a political expression as well.

These actions and social communication at different levels, whether simply on TV or more sophisticated on the press, aim to prepare people’s mind for the new conflict.

The reactions of political leaders shows different sides. The initially babbling Bush, who was taken aback at a school in Florida and hardly gave a weak speech and paid careful attention to his personal safety instead of conveying confidence to a terrified society then changed into a new Bush who spoke of a violent, ‘long war’ thought to affect the Americans’ way of life and encouraged the idea of the country’s hegemonic power.

Despite his right-leaning bias, the Attorney General only talks about hunting down the criminals and punishing them as if it had been a common crime.

The change in the roles of Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser ‘Condy’ Rice has been notorious. The Adviser found shelter in silence and Powell came out to speak in public constantly. Powell was the first to point Osama bin Laden as the alleged mastermind and repeated his name on and on until on Friday 14 Bush finally did it. Therefore, we may infer that fearful of walking the unknown lands of a ‘dirty war’, Powell opts for a response closer to ‘traditional’ ways of combat, seeking a scapegoat that ‘pays the price’ for the incident.

He follows his moderate party line, if the term may be used amid constant calls for retaliation. Powell made great efforts to separate Pakistan from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, gaining support from the Pakistan government for eventual reprisal.

Is the other choice –broadening powers to conduct not only traditional actions but also others including ‘dirty war’- suggested by Condy Rice? It is not clear yet.

To a question from the Congress panel, Air Force General Richard Myers answered ‘We are not so good at the threats coming from inside’. It is apparent that most military commands would not be comfortable with such a strong change in roles and would rather entrust that task on the CIA and FBI. But they do not want to stay out of the game either. A massive military action would rebuild the weakening military institutions, new gears and equipment and better quality personnel. And if to that end it is necessary to wage a dirty war then they will.

For federal security agencies it is their chance, especially after recent scandals that showed some inefficiency, treason on the pat of double agents and unacceptable flaws including many that failed to avert the September 11 attacks. But this entails a change in the scope of the agencies’ actions and the power of the federal state over the states integrating the Union.

The debate over the balance between security and freedoms unleashed quickly. On Saturday 15, the New York Times released an article referring to a class in West Point showing a picture of a teacher introducing a subject illustrated between two extremes: 1948 and Orwell and another of full freedom, where balance had to be found in view of threats. The article indicated the change of the school curricula had been made after the attacks.

So far there have been no public pronouncements from military chiefs but Powell admitted on Sunday 16 that the whole military framework of the actions to be conducted by intelligence agencies is being revised thus hinting that the existing attachments that guarantee rights may be changed. Apparently, they have had to compromise with those favoring a ‘grand scale dirty war’.

For now we assume targets to be outside the United States but nobody can tell what exactly may happen when ‘the cage of the lion is opened’.

These are times when the efforts of past years to impose human rights respect (also used as a political weapon against the deceased USSR) will suffer a notorious regression. The Roman maxim ‘inter arma silent leges’ (in times of war the laws fall silent) already used during the campaigns of the dessert war, under media manipulation combined with sophisticated communication technology, will surely expand.

Fears about what it means in terms of restriction of freedom have already risen as well as what implications ‘revenge’ may have. European leaders have begun to moderate statements.

Whether through the Security Council or Secretary General, the United Nations has been totally absent in times when its presence was more than necessary. On Sunday 16, Secretary General Annan and the Chairman of the General Assembly made a late appearance at Saint Patrick’s for some public relations.

Building the large counter-terror coalition driven by the United States is no easy task. In Latin America it is already possible to see where efforts are heading for. In his recent visit to the United States, Mexican President Fox called for the TIAR of 1947 to be reviewed due to its inefficiency in the wake of the Cold War. Now the treaty is being reconsidered under new goals that call for the region’s readiness for hunt, entailing greater ‘policianization’ of the whole military structure among other things.

For European allies it means a flawless solidarity seeking to aver the common dissent usually risen by countries like France.

The most difficult part will be to deal with the interests of countries deeply involved in the Middle East and Central Asia. Russia shares the interest to limit the actions of Islamic extremists without weakening new allies like Iran and that its role as ‘supervisor’ of ‘Turkish republics’ remains strong. It is a matter of wooing Pakistan without losing support from India and China. This entails advances in talks to solve the Cashmere conflict. It’s a matter of enlisting damaged Indonesia, which has a considerable Muslim majority and secessionist groups, as well as Malaysia with its strong Islamic majority. It has to strongly support Turkey and moderate Israel in its clashes with Palestinians.

On Sunday 16, Sharon called Arafat their Osama bin Laden. In economic terms, it means rescuing Turkey, relieving Pakistan’s debt burden, and aid the tumbling economy of Indonesia.

In political terms, it means backing the governments led by ‘sons of beach’, as long as they are ‘his sons of beach’ quoting Roosevelt’s phrase to describe ‘Tacho’ Somoza by late the ‘30s. Some will try to change stances to obtain this new category.

But at the same time, governments with a population usually passively close to ‘radical’ stances risk losing the support of their inhabitants, who cannot always may be considered citizens or if they are, they can barely be formal citizens for they are part of anti-liberal democracies or authoritarian rules. Pakistani militaries know that most of the country’s religious organizations will not back them up and so more control will be lost in the border with Afghanistan. The madrazas –Islamic schools- will continue producing militaries. The greatest fear is the influence of radical Muslims young officers of the Armed Forces in a country with atomic bombs.

The same happens to Arafat and Hamas. Arafat has managed to control the cheers for the attacks although much of the communicational damage has not been averted. Harassed by Sharon’s government and his radicals, his room to maneuver is increasingly smaller and so new martyrs will be available.

The metaphor of the war against terrorism – a protracted police task- that entails fighting not against states but people and clandestine organizations, resorting to the idea of the fifth column, the ‘internal enemy’, is a new challenge and a new scenario for international relations, a challenge for the political culture and customs of the American people.

Today Osama bin Laden is signaled as the target of the counter-terrorist coalition for this ‘war’, this police-related operation, that may be also accompanied by considerable military action. The Islamic Front Osama intends to build to wage this Holy War against Jews and crusaders is one of the many heads that draw on terrorism. If this was all about finding Osama, then we may think of victory but there are other Osamas and Al Qaedas. That is why it is essential to deal a hard blow but trying to know who receives the blow and not ‘hit blindly’. Trying to encompass it all, then the notion of enemy will be too large and we run the risk of being politically defeated or enlarging the conflict even more.

Another metaphor –‘the war against drugs’- has showed such a war is non-existent, when one head is cut off many more stem from the hydra. There the motive is purely economic and the lack of a global strategy makes us lose the ‘war’ despite battles are won because that is not the central point.

The new war to be waged is political and the ‘enemy’ conceals behind religious or nationalistic excuses. It is a cultural clash. Of course, the language of force is understood but facing a conflict with cross-border organizations that build on hatreds of different kinds calls for a proper diagnosis and support to ‘hit’ the target.

Fighting requires a strong government, facing the trend toward ‘privatization’ and less power for the State. The lack of security experienced by the big economic organizations of our time (for instance, the airports from where the planes that crashed into the Towers and Pentagon took off) relates to the idea of having large economic-financial companies operating with limited costs within the framework of a weakened State. Will trends regarding the roles of the State change considering it is the only capable of providing security and not private enterprises? For instance, how to control people’s identity in a country where there are thousands id cards, security agents’ badges nobody can memorize? Sociologist A Etzioni wrote a book referring to the aversion and fear of having a single id in the United States when in fact everyone has different records controlled by private and state agencies and when it is a fact that citizens’ communications have been controlled for long.

The result is freedom is at risk plus inefficiency. Wouldn’t it be better to implement better controls with the corresponding legal guarantees and be more efficient?

In turn, will the current trend to broaden the inequality gap among social strata continue? It is apparent that terrorism does not relate directly to social impoverishment or injustice or revolutionary movements. An idea is necessary, call it ‘national liberation’, ‘fight against classes’, ‘revolution’ or ‘crusade’ to produce these actions. Terrorism is a method not an end in itself although many times it looks so because the justification is so ‘weak’ from the rational point of view that actions seem to be perpetrated by insane people. But this is not so. Although sometimes we are dealing with organizations that have no chances to win, their members believe the contrary. They feel the support of followers who would never launch terrorist attacks.

For those followers winning means denying the ‘enemy’s’ victory, showing that despite it all the asymmetry of those who feel submissive may have times of ‘glory’. In the face of such an enemy, a battle or war plan is not enough –though of course needed- it should be fit into a political plan. Followers must be convinced that they will not achieve their goals through that path. This means leaving operative bigots alone, without support to get anywhere.

Therefore, we must be cautious in conducting police operations. As well known by the French who won the Battle of Algeria –though failed to impose politically- or the militaries in Argentina and Uruguay who also won the ‘interior war’ in times of the cold war but lost the political battle, the ‘war’ plan is not enough but people must be convinced.

This calls for another kind of actions and the sensibility on the part of the leaders to face this new scenario.