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Dawud Helleman
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[Poll] War on Terror breeding more terror(ists)
June 29, 2002 - 03:00 AM
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from Eric Margolis, a foreign-policy scholar with direct experience in much of the south-Asian and Middle-East environments: the author of the book, War on Top of the World: which put the Kashmir-India dynamic on everybody's mind before many were aware of the threat of nuclear war.
ZURICH -- According to a secret government report revealed last week by the New York Times, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan not only "failed to diminish the threat to the United States," but actually complicated the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign by dispersing its radical foes across the Muslim world.
The small, tightly-knit leadership of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has been succeeded by a group of younger militants who have formed ad hoc alliances with other anti-U.S. groups from Morocco to Indonesia. These groups now pose the most serious danger to the United States and will remain a potent threat for years to come.
This dismaying report confirms what this writer has been saying in columns and on CNN since 9/11. A full-scale military invasion of Afghanistan would prove futile; the correct response was intelligence and police work, not brute force.
Al-Qaida's numbers were grossly exaggerated by the Bush administration and U.S. media. Hardcore al-Qaida members never numbered more than 200-300. Claims that there were 5,000-20,000 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan were nonsense. These wild exaggerations came from lumping Taliban tribal warriors with some 5,000 Islamic resistance fighters from Kashmir, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Philippines and Chinese-ruled Eastern Turkistan, none of whom were part of al-Qaida.
The reason 12,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops operating in Afghanistan can't find al-Qaida - a campaign that has so far cost over US$10 billion - is that there were few to begin with; by now, most have slipped away through Pakistan. Instead, the U.S. is getting mired in Afghan tribal politics by trying to maintain a regime in Kabul that will take orders from Washington.
Last week's much ballyhooed grand tribal council, or loya jirga, that "elected" CIA "asset" Hamid Karzai as national leader was a wildly expensive charade conducted under the guns of U.S. and British troops. Karzai's "election" has cost Washington $5 billion in bribes and payoffs to Afghan warlords. As soon as U.S. and British occupation troops decamp, Afghanistan will again dissolve into tribal chaos or fall under the control of Russia, which continues to arm and direct the Northern Alliance.
Fury over Palestine
It's also becoming painfully clear that Afghanistan was never the true epicentre of anti-U.S. militancy, as Washington initially believed. The real hotbeds of Islamic resistance to the United States lay in Egypt, Arabia, North Africa and Europe. According to the leaked report in the Times, a loose network of anti-American groups have surfaced in these regions, united mainly by their fury over events in Palestine, America's impending invasion of Iraq, and opposition to America's political and economic domination in the Muslim World.
Osama bin Laden, be he dead or alive, and his al-Qaida movement have become irrelevant. In truth, they were never much more than a symbol of hatred and defiance. But their message, propagated by 9/11, has reverberated around the world. The torch of anti-Americanism is being taken up by the "jihadi" movement - Muslim veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s - and by a younger generation of militants.
Sizeable numbers of anti-American militants have been uncovered in Europe and arrested by local police and intelligence forces, the only major success, to date, of the "war on terrorism." But more hostile groups are springing up faster than they can be identified or neutralized.
Call this the privatization of warfare. Many young Muslims despair their own feeble, corrupt, U.S.-dominated regimes will ever bring justice to the Palestinians, save Iraq from invasion by the U.S., or end what they view as oppressive American influence over their nations. They are taking matters into their own hands by waging a personalized war against the United States and Israel, two nations that have become one in the eyes of the Muslim world.
Forty years ago, the Islamic world regarded the United States as its best friend and saviour. Today, the two are on a collision course. There is growing fear across the Muslim world that the Bush administration is being driven by backers of Israel and fundamentalist Christians into a modern anti-Islamic crusade.
Powell sidelined
The leaked report in the Times likely originated from Colin Powell's Department of State. Powell is widely respected abroad as the administration's most intelligent and ethical member, but he has been almost totally sidelined because of his opposition to invading Iraq and waging a wider war against the Muslim world. Foreign policy - particularly towards the Mideast and South/Central Asia - has been taken over by a hardline, ardently pro-Israel faction in the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Powell may soon resign in disgust.
President Bush's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, should provide balance and nuance. But she has shown herself a rigid ideologue with poor judgment and very limited understanding of the outside world. She is in way over her head. Bush is not getting the sound advice he needs. As a result, he has been vacillating and contradicting himself for months.
Afghanistan, billed only last fall as a triumph for America and President Bush, is now looking less and less like a victory and more each day like the beginning of a long, bloody struggle that could and should have been avoided.
see: www.foreigncorrespondent.com/
interesting Discussion... Dawud
Has this war on Terrorism (since 9/11) been successful?
Yes, so long as we don't get attacked again.
(0 votes for 0%)
No, the targets are still alive - and America is hated more than ever.
(0 votes for 0%)
What 'War on Terrorism'? All these 'terrorists' have been supported by the CIA at one point, this sounds like the 'War on Drugs'?!?
(6 votes for 75%)
We need a war on Terrorism, but foreign-policy changes as well as spiritual self-investigation would help us in the long-term.
(2 votes for 25%)
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vivek
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Re: War on Terror breeding more terror(ists)
July 1, 2002 - 09:53 AM
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god help!!!
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Mike
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as the troops pull out . .
July 9, 2002 - 11:39 AM
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Havent posted in a while. Its nice to be back.
Frankly, and this is really just an opinion. A war against an enemy as undefined as evil itsself, though credited as being an imminent threat and under the guise of the ultimate devil can only result in one thing - an impossible victory.
Its not that you cant defeat Al Qaeda, its that you can never entirely destroy it. Rendering it incapable of carrying out further terror attacks is one thing, aboloshing it and changing the minds of its members is, sadly, impossible.
Perhaps what needs to be found is a balance between what is good, and what is evil. And if there is ever to be a balance then perhaps those that side with the forces of good should not resort to the methods of evil.
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Pred.
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Hye-Jin Lee
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Re: War on Terror breeding more terror(ists)
July 10, 2002 - 05:42 AM
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Although some of you may view what I am about to say as offensive, please take into account this is only my personal opinion.
The war on terrorism for me seems to be absolutely pointless. First of all, terrorism isn't something you can actually fight. It's like an ideology, not something tangible. However, the say in which we are fighting the war on terrorism, is by using terrorism. That to me, is in itself a contradiction. Meanwhile, only innocent civilians have been killed for an unjustifiable reason. By creating the phrase "war on terror" or "axis of evil" is provoking more violence, instead of stopping it. An axis of evil doesn't exist, despite what Bush has declared. And it seems as if any nation with foreign policies that don't coincide with the United States, is the enemy. But the enemy against what??
This war on terror was first declared after September 11th, to justify the deaths of the innocent civilians in that tragedy. But in my opinion, to justify any death (whether it is related to this war on terror or not) with another death doesn't make a difference except for the fact that the body count goes up.
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Mike
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Re: War on Terror breeding more terror(ists)
July 13, 2002 - 11:21 AM
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...to justify any death (whether it is related to this war on terror or not) with another death doesn't make a difference except for the fact that the body count goes up.
And the whole world goes blind.
Its funny how the term 'war on terror' was actually created by the digital artists at CNN. NBC called it "America's Revenge" until they realised it was just a little too inciteful. CBS didnt give it a name until the term 'war on terror' was unilaterally accepted.
Id like to know what the Arab world calls it. Geez I wish I had al-Jazeera.
Anyway, I find it amusing that something coined by an artist looking to label what happened after Sept. 11 could cause such an uproar.
Also, just for fun - while millions of Americans now refer to Sept. 11 as 911 or 9/11. To the rest of the world (take a few countries) that means November 9th. Apart from being 2 days away from the anniversary of armistice of WWI, I dont recall anything significant about November 9th?
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emily churchill
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Re: War on Terror breeding more terror(ists)
July 14, 2002 - 09:19 AM
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the american government needed to be seen to be 'doing something' about sept 11 so they did...without any real evidence, let alone fair trials for any of the accused.
obviously the deaths of the sept 11 victims hurt a lot of people, but what about the thousands of deaths in places like isreal/ palestine caused by arms provided by the US? how come they got so little recognition? why is an american life seen as so much more valuable than a palestinian one? - a civilian death caused by america is unfortunate; regretable, yet an american death is outrageous; shocking; tragic.
sept 11 should have made america realise that their actions have consequences - horrible consequences; that they are not 'all-powerful'; that people will react to being treated like nothing. They should have realised what they had driven people to do. Instead, the continue in exactly the same way as they did before the attacks.
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Mike
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Careful...
July 15, 2002 - 08:13 AM
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Careful, America doesnt sell weapons to Palestine, and Israel make a rather large portion of their own armaments; C
custom made usually.
What America does do, however, is side with the Israeli's nine times out of ten. Its unfortunate that they do this, and while I believe Israel has a right to exist, they must do so while attempting to co-exist with the Palestinians, who have the same right as any other people to live where they please.
Its all about the existence.
I see your point about an American death being seen differently. But chances are, your seeing it through the eyes of American media. CNN loves to broadcast the depressing images of civilians in warzones because, frankly, it keeps the American public interested. When someone is killed by America, you'll often see the same sort of coverage. But what happens is, and this is interesting, is that the Government comes out with the same statement every time - 'deaths are inevitable, though unfortunate' - and the American public is still buying it.
The only way thats ever going to stop is for a large portion of the American public to get sick of the hate, and force its government to take a different path.
What im afraid of is that the current government has forgotten that war is fought between two sides. And you cant win all the time.
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Dawud Helleman
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Terrorism, Religion, & aTheism
July 18, 2002 - 03:18 AM
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There's another great book on this topic, Terrorism in the Face of God (I think), as well as Karen Armstrongs' 'Holy War', where she as an ex-Catholic nun, discusses the Catholic Pope Urban II's initiating that term 'Holy War' into discussion (as well as recognizing that 'Jihad' translates as 'struggle' not as above)...
this excerpt below kicks off the discussion quite well though:
Excerpts from 'It's Still Evil, Stupid' by David Forte, on NRO(!), National Review Online (I surprise myself by finding something I quite appreciate from a source I don't expect to agree with): http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/op...te/02/evil.html
.... Terrorism comes out of malevolence. It is a political program by which a minority seeks to obtain and maintain power by destroying those aspects of life that are essential to human flourishing. The terrorist directly targets family, home, work, friendship, leisure, stability, worship, mobility, and freedom. He seeks to exterminate those parts of human existence that make life worth living. Terrorism can only truly be understood as an evil directed against the human spirit. It is a spiritual, not a psychological, malady. It is evil in its essence. It is a sin, perhaps the deepest sin of all.
Obviously, radical violence of the political sort is not always religiously connected. In fact, most radical violence is neither religiously inspired, nor is it even religiously connected. The sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols was not religious in any sense. The mass murders by Nazism and Communism were actually done in the name of atheism, and often against religion. For all those people who distort religion into violence, or who claim a religious covering for their inexcusable deeds, let us never forget history. Let us not forget the 20th century when more people were killed in the name of atheism than were ever killed in the name of religion.
Still, violence in the name of religion is what is on everyone's lips today, and too many people have died in the past decades and are suffering now for us to ignore it. Violence in the name of religion is a scandal to all true believers. So let us look at why people do it. What makes a person kill or suppress in the name of religion?
Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders have cited chapter and verse to show that terroristic acts are contrary to the teachings of their respective religions. That is true. But if we plumb more deeply into the mind and soul of the terrorist, we find that he is not merely doing wrong. He is striking at the very heart of the revelatory traditions of the three Abrahamic religions. Those traditions inform us of the true spiritual roots of his malice. ....
hope you dig this, and note that atheism also is responsible for violence.... Dawud
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