Politics

In its efforts to prevent a repeat of the tragic events of Sept. 11, the United State is moving perilously close to creating in our own nation a police state where human rights are denied, according to a professor in the University at Buffalo Law School who is a human rights expert.

The World Trade Center twin towers should be rebuilt as a "focal sign for American resolve, for the ability of a democratic society to suffer injury and heal," according to an urban sociologist at the University at Buffalo.

The proposed federal takeover of airport security ultimately could permit longer and more careful screening of passengers and their baggage, according to a University at Buffalo professor who serves on a Federal Aviation Administration panel that studies research and development needs in aviation security.

A major emphasis on improving intelligence-gathering -- including having the FBI and CIA work in tandem -- must be a key piece of the U.S. retaliation against terrorists for last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to a University at Buffalo professor who is a former editor of the journal Armed Forces & Society. "If President Bush looks only to the military, which seems to be both his initial inclination, and what the American public wants him to do, he will get incomplete and misleading information about what's important," said Claude E. Welch, Jr., Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the UB Department of Political Science.

Americans' "general naivete" regarding the beliefs and assumptions of religions other than their own is hampering their ability to understand discussions about those suspected of being responsible for last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to Phillips Stevens, Jr. Stevens, associate professor of anthropology at the University at Buffalo and nationally-recognized expert in the anthropology of religion, says the lack of knowledge is particularly acute when it comes to fundamentalist religious groups of the Middle East.

George W. Bush took a solid first step in improving his image as this country's leader when he stepped to the microphone this week to comment on terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to a University at Buffalo professor with expertise in leadership, charisma and management styles.

The terrorists who Tuesday used hijacked commercial airliners to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon "were using death and destruction to deliver a message," according to an associate professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo. "They deliberately chose to attack the most visible symbols of American wealth and military power," says James M. Lawler, whose expertise is in social and political philosophy, "hoping that the impoverished majority of mankind would applaud and rally behind them."

As a result of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have been hit with a "double shock," according to Paul Senese, assistant professor of political science at the University at Buffalo and an expert in international security and conflict process and American foreign policy.

Tuesday's terrorist strikes at the World Trade Center and Pentagon "bring the horror of war into Americans' lives in ways others have been experiencing it for decades," according to Michael Frisch, professor of American History at the University at Buffalo.