- "You're either with the United States or with the
terrorists," said George W. Bush post-September 11, 2001, as he vowed
to root out America's enemies and wage his "war on terror". Most
of the world quickly scuttled on board. Since then, we have witnessed the
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the flouting of human rights at Guantanamo,
while Iran and North Korea become ever more suspicious and insular.
-
- Which ever way the US and Britain attempt to paint their
efforts citing Afghanistan and Iraq as examples of newly freed nations
on the brink of democracy the picture is far from pretty.
-
- As we reflect on Bali, where Australian youths were targeted;
the Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, which came under a rocket attack; and
the bombs which went off near synagogues and at the British Embassy in
Istanbul; can we conclude that Bush is defeating those he calls "evildoers"?
-
- While we sat glued to our screens horrified at the agony
of blood soaked survivors of Madrid with the death toll rising by the minute,
were we able to say the "war on terror" has been a success? Spaniards
who voted out the party of Jose Maria Aznar obviously thought not. Many
considered the 200 deaths a result of their government's alliance with
the US and changed their vote accordingly.
-
- Their mood was echoed by the British MP Tom Dalyell who
commented: "Perhaps Mr. Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister and Mr.
Blair should look at themselves in the mirror and wonder whether their
years of reckless policy towards Iraq and the unleashing of bombs in Afghanistan
has anything to do with the horrors in Madrid."
-
- We must surely dig deep and ask ourselves: Have the American-led
anti-terror policies reduced the threat? Have they thwarted the ambitions
of the terrorists or made them more determined? Have those policies quelled
the terrorists' sense of injustice and anti-American sentiments, or rather
fuelled them?
-
- Was it bravado which prompted the American president
to say, "Bring 'em on!" with reference to his enemies? Or, did
he genuinely feel his country and its allies were equipped to deal efficiency
and effectively with all those who seek to harm them?
-
- Prior to the war with the Taliban, Al Qaida was mainly
concentrated in Afghanistan with a visible, tangible presence in the form
of training camps. Sure, there were sleeper cells scattered around the
planet but they were not at that time on the run.
-
- Their enemies were also clearly defined and were limited
to the Indian army in Kashmir, the Russian military in Chechnya, and the
US, which had bases on what they considered sacred Saudi Arabian soil.
The Palestinian cause was tacked onto their grievances at a later date
in an effort to whip up new recruits.
-
- After the invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaida members went
to ground and may well have multiplied, despite efforts to cut off their
funding. Before 9/11, Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants were hardly household
names. When the Bush administration took them on in such a high-profile
fashion, they suddenly became a magnet for ideologically inspired fanatics.
-
- Their notoriety has led to like-minded groups seeking
them out or has spawned new alliances and copycat organisations worldwide
using a similar modus operandi. Al Qaida, its splinter groups and associates
now have new gripes, Afghanistan and Iraq, and have added new names to
their target list - Britain, Spain, Australia and Italy.
-
- Today, there are more angry young killers harbouring
hatred towards many more countries, who are spread around within western
societies making them almost impossible to detect. With the expansion of
the European Union in May, that task will become ever more arduous.
-
- The Madrid bombings have made Europeans feel insecure,
their leaders' warning that there may have to be a trade-off between making
their populations safe and the sort of human rights and civil liberties
hundreds of years of democracy have nurtured.
-
- Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett told a Labour
Party conference that the new form of terror plunged societies into a situation
where norms of prosecution and punishment did not apply. But can such draconian
measures succeed?
-
- Short of implementing emergency laws, carting away suspects
in the dead of night, urging neighbour to spy on neighbour, issuing bio-metric
identity cards, setting up CC-TV cameras on every street corner, racially-profiling,
and using torture to extract confessions and names of terrorist associates,
there are no guarantees.
-
- But then, if this was to happen, what freedoms would
we have left to defend? What value would democracy still have and wouldn't
the terrorists have won?
-
- The US has behaved like the man who used a mallet to
kill a fly on the head of his child. Instead of going on a rampage, it
should have covertly identified and captured its enemies with the assistance
of sympathetic governments - as most were, post 9/11.
-
- If it didn't possess experienced and multi-lingual "humint",
its friends in the Middle East did, and in time Al Qaida could have been
infiltrated.
-
- Secretly, without fanfare, the cells in the US and Europe
could have been exposed after wooing the communities in which they hid
and by using advanced surveillance technology and better communication
between different arms of the intelligence community.
-
- That wouldn't have worked, you say? Maybe it would have,
and maybe it wouldn't. But one thing is for sure Bush's war on terrorism
has failed.
-
- The only possible winners are the expanding pockets of
American defence contractors, along with construction and petroleum companies.
-
- The ordinary folk of America and Europe are left to wonder
where and when will the terrorists strike next and how will their governments
protect them when unremarkable men with a fancy mobile phone can set off
a bomb.
-
- http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/opinion.asp?ArticleID=114164
|
