- LONDON -- Politicians have
a habit of declaring war on all sorts of intangible enemies - war on crime,
war on drugs, war on whatever. These are only wars in a manner of speaking
and we donât normally expect aircraft carriers to be dispatched and
missiles readied in order to deal with them.
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- Five days after the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York
and Washington, President George Bush declared his intention to retaliate.
"This crusade, this war on terrorism," he said, "is going
to take a while".
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- The word "crusade" proved an immediate own-goal,
alarming Muslims with its historical allusion, and White House officials
hastily back-tracked, making clear that "crusade" was only a
figure of speech.
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- But the "war" on terrorism was not a figure
of speech. As the world soon discovered, George Bush meant it literally.
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- From the very beginning, the war on terrorism was ill-conceived.
Amid the trauma of Sept. 11, that was understandable and to some extent
excusable, but the US has done little or nothing over the last two years
to refine its concept and the objectives of the war are even more muddled
today than they were in 2001.
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- The war on terrorism, almost by definition, is infinite
and unwinnable. No political leader is ever going to claim "victory"
because that would be tempting fate. The best we can hope for is that it
will eventually fade to more manageable proportions.
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- It is also a war against an undefined, nebulous enemy.
Bush insists, in the war on terrorism, that we are either for him or against
him - and yet there is no international consensus on what the word "terrorism"
means.
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- Russia, China, and many other countries, have their own
ideas about terrorism and have been happy to step up internal repression
in the pretence of helping Bush.
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- The war, as conceived by Bush, also treats terrorism
in a vacuum, as a phenomenon that is simply evil and not the product of
history or circumstance: Never mind the injustices or the violence committed
by governments - all that the suicide bombers want is a business-class
ticket to paradise.
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- The result is a war that tries to deal with the symptoms
- by making terrorism more difficult - while ignoring the factors that
turn people toward violence. This is rather like the crime prevention strategy
of fitting extra bolts to your windows and doors in the hope that burglars
will rob your neighborâs house instead: It may be worth doing, but
donât expect it to cure the underlying problem.
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- During the first year of the war on terrorism, according
to the US State Departmentâs annual report, Patterns of Global Terrorism,
there appeared to be some progress in dealing with the symptoms. The number
of international terrorist incidents (as defined by the State Department)
fell to 199 in 2002 from 355 the year before.
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- But a closer look shows that the reduction occurred almost
entirely in South America, which is hardly a hotbed of Islamic militancy.
If the South American figures are excluded, the war on terrorism reduced
the number of year-on-year attacks by only five.
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- Worldwide casualties reported by the State Department
in 2002 were 2,738 compared with 5,431 in 2001 (the year of Sept. 11).
If the exceptionally high toll of Sept. 11 is excluded, the total for 2001
was slightly less than half of last yearâs figure. The casualty totals
for 2000 and 1999 were 1,211 and 940 respectively - a lot lower than last
yearâs figure - though 1998 was a bad year with 6,695 casualties.
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- Counting the terrorist attacks for this year is likely
to give the State Department a headache because of the situation in Iraq.
Attacks on US troops, for instance, are not regarded as terrorism if a
"state of hostilities" exists, but George Bush officially ended
"major hostilities" on May 1. Maybe they will be counted, maybe
not.
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- While the progress made by the United States in tackling
the symptoms of terrorism is at best debatable, there are signs that the
broader anti-terrorism project is running into trouble, along with the
associated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may even be worsening the
problem.
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- The war on terror is not diminishing or containing paramilitary
threats worldwide, according to a new report by the Oxford Research Group
which was written by Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford
University.
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- Since Sept. 11, despite success in forestalling some
attacks, more than 350 people have been killed by groups linked to Al-Qaeda
and almost 1,000 injured.
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- "Military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have
failed significantly to dent Al-Qaedaâs capacities, and the US military
presence may serve as a further focus for radical paramilitaries,"
the report says.
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- "European and majority world opinion has moved against
US policy in key areas. US actions are increasingly perceived worldwide
as part of a program to economically exploit developing countries. Levels
of anti-Americanism have risen significantly."
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- In Afghanistan, the war removed the Taleban regime which
sheltered Osama Bin Laden and his supporters - in effect by taking sides
in a civil war - but failed to capture either Bin Laden or Mulla Omar,
the Talebanâs leader.
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- More than 18 months later, there are still 10,000 US
troops fighting in Afghanistan. The US-installed government has little
influence outside the capital, drug production is flourishing again, and
yet only last week, President Bush predicted a "triumph of democracy
and tolerance" there.
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- With vast numbers of US troops now pinned down in Iraq,
it is reasonable to expect that the Taleban and other groups in Afghanistan
will step up their activities.
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- Iraq itself had no direct connection with Sept. 11, but
attacking it soon became part of the cathartic process. In the absence
of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (the official pretext for the invasion)
President Bush now has to look for other reasons to justify the American
presence - which the Baathists and others have helpfully provided.
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- "Two years ago," Bush said in a speech last
week, "I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror
would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts
in many places. Iraq is now the central front."
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- That, in a nutshell, is why the war on terror will never
be won. Bush needs terrorists as much as the terrorists need Bush.
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