WASHINGTON: US opinion remains at odds about the root causes of the terror attacks that triggered the military action and how to address those causes in the future.

Now that the war in Afghanistan is winding down, however, the question of causes and remedies is re-emerging, although the various sides appear to be talking very much past each other.

At their simplest, the differences on these questions have become the latest battle in the so-called “culture wars”.

One side - call it the social workers - argues that US arrogance, insensitivity, and lack of generosity to the victims of poverty and oppression helped create the conditions under which anti-US terrorism could take root and flourish.

To this group, military action must be followed by the implementation of policies and programmes - be they in the form of aid, re-engagement in multilateral institutions, or pressure on Israel or autocratic regimes - that are more responsive to the needs and hopes of the people from whom terrorists are recruited.

The opposing side - call it the cowboys for its rough and unilateralist instincts - is utterly scornful of such remedies. ”The notion that wealthy people like (Osama) bin Laden are moved to become terrorists because of poverty is, well, it’s a joke on its face,” according to the cowboys’ top administration gunslinger, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

The influence of the hard-liners clustered around Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, including Wolfowitz, in the Bush administration has clearly risen as a result of the successful prosecution of the war.

This worries the social workers. While reluctant to criticize Rumsfeld’ s military campaign, they have stressed at every opportunity that the US cannot win the “war against terrorism” by threats and military means alone.

While poverty and inequality, according to Shibley Telhami, an analyst at the Brookings Institution here, may be factors that attract recruits to terrorism, “humiliation and hopelessness” are more fundamental spurs.

“If we spend a fraction of the energies we now use on the military campaign to address the political sources of humiliation and hopelessness, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, we would stand a far better chance of winning,” Telhami wrote this week.

“Although I see the terror suppliers on the defensive today,” he added in an implicit warning to the cowboys, “public humiliation and helplessness in the Middle East are on the increase.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.