- The eminent military historian Professor Sir Michael
Howard launched a scathing attack yesterday on the continued bombardment
of Afghanistan, comparing it to "trying to eradicate cancer cells
with a blow torch".
-
- It had put the al-Qaida network in a "win-win situation",
he told the conference, and could escalate into an ongoing confrontation
that would shatter our own multicultural societies.
-
- The longer it went on, he added, the worse the consequences
would be.
-
- "Even more disastrous would be its extension...
through other rogue states, beginning with Iraq, to eradicate terrorism
for good and all," he said. "I can think of no policy more likely,
not only to indefinitely prolong the war, but to ensure that we can never
win it."
-
- While praising President George Bush for moving away
from the unilateralism and isolationism that had characterised recent US
policy, Sir Michael said the administration had made a "terrible and
irreversible" mistake in calling its anti-terrorism campaign a war.
-
- It had granted al-Qaida a status it did not deserve and
created overwhelming public demand for military action.
-
- "Many people would have preferred a police operation
conducted under the auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community
as a whole, against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted
down and brought before an international court," Sir Michael said.
-
- "Terrorists can be successfully destroyed only if
public opinion supports the authorities in regarding them as criminals
rather than heroes.
-
- "As we discovered in both Palestine and Ireland,
the terrorists have already won an important battle if they can provoke
the authorities into using overt armed force."
-
- Sir Michael, who was for many years regius professor
of modern history at Oxford University, scorned the idea that al-Qaida
could be defeated by the removal of the "evil genius" Osama bin
Laden.
-
- He warned: "It is hard to believe that a global
network apparently consisting of people as intelligent and well-educated
as they are dedicated and ruthless will not continue to function effectively
until they are traced and dug out by patient operations of police and intelligence
forces."
|
