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Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 15:07:28 PST
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Subject: [R-G] Al-Qaida is winning war, allies warned - The Guardian
The Guardian (London) Wednesday October 31, 2001
Al-Qaida is winning war, allies warned
By Tania Branigan
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."
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