http://www.arabnews.com/? page=7§ion=0&article=67074&d=17&m=7&y=2005
Terrorism Can Only Be Defeated by Compromise and Negotiation David Reiff, The Guardian On the battlefields of Iraq, American military officials now no longer deny the skill of the homegrown insurgents and foreign terrorists against whom they have been fighting since the fall of Saddam Hussein. In Pentagon language, US forces are fighting a "thinking" and "adapting" enemy. The most important conclusion to draw from the July 7 terrorist bombings in London is that part of that enemy's "adaptation" is to continue the strikes against civilian targets in Western capitals and Western interests and tourist venues throughout the world that began with the attacks of Sept. 11 2001 on New York and Washington, and have continued in such places as Bali, Istanbul, Madrid and now London. The four terrorists implicated so far in the London bombings, as well as others who seem to have abetted the plot, all appear to have been members of the British Muslim community rather than a terrorist cell infiltrated from outside the UK. More worryingly still, they appear to have grown up in families that utterly rejected extremism and, in effect, their terrorism appears to have been self-motivated. This combination of terrorist cells and at least some sympathizers with the terrorist cause (their number is impossible to gauge) within Diasporic and immigrant Islamic communities across the continent obviously makes Europe particularly vulnerable. This does not mean that Muslim immigrant communities as a whole represent a fifth column within European society, as a growing number of European politicians, by no means all of them on the far right, have increasingly taken to suggesting. But it does mean that there are enough sympathizers within these communities to make the terrorists' job feasible as opposed to impossible. The European experience with such terrorist groups as the Red Brigades, ETA and the IRA is relevant here, and not only in the sense that as, in private, European politicians often say pointedly Europe has a depth of experience with terrorism that Americans do not begin to approach. What the Red Brigades and the IRA proved, and ETA to some extent continues to demonstrate, is that terrorist groups can mount lethal operations over long periods of time even with comparatively thin popular support. Partly this is because the nature of advanced capitalist societies, both in terms of their mobility and anonymity and in terms of the expectation of safety that most citizens entertain, makes any terrorist strike psychologically disruptive and symbolically devastating even if practically insignificant, at least over the long term. And compared to these groups, these terrorists have a number of added advantages. To begin with, terrorist groups sheltering within the Islamic Diaspora have been far harder for Western security services to penetrate both for the obvious cultural reasons and also because of the sheer size of these communities. Given that demographic reality, there is a real question as to whether, even if security services were substantially expanded (as has already happened in Britain), there will ever be enough agents to keep tabs on terrorist cells. To their credit, long before the attacks of July 7, British officials were candid with the public and said repeatedly that, no matter how good counterterrorist tactics had become, a terrorist strike on London was a matter of when, not if. The same could probably be said of a number of other major European capitals, not to mention the US, where a reprise of the Sept. 11 attacks is probably also only a matter of time. This problem cannot be blamed on the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, despite what some leftist activists in the UK have suggested. The chronology is wrong, for one thing. The 9/11 attacks took place at a time when the Bush administration was quite unprepared to launch a war in Iraq, even if some senior figures thought it was the right policy to pursue. But more importantly, describing this terrorism as purely reactive actually misdescribes its political character. Iraq has exacerbated the problem. The US military campaign is many things, and its outcome is at present very much in doubt. But it is clear that many of the extremists who volunteered to fight there are already bringing the lessons they have learned on the battlefield, in terms of experience and technical expertise, back home to Europe, where many of them live. Thanks to numerous "informal" mosques across Europe and the myriad Islamist websites on the Internet, these fighters are able to transmit their knowledge to the disenchanted youth of the Muslim Diaspora in Europe and Canada, and perhaps in the US as well. If prison for many of these European fighters has become an ideological school, as demonstrated by the careers of such terrorists as Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker of 9/11, and the shoe bomber Richard Reid, the battlefields of Iraq have been their military academy as Afghanistan was for their elder brothers and for many of their leaders (including, of course, Osama Bin Laden) a generation ago. No amount of indignation in Washington, or calls for Churchillian resolve, can change these facts as Tony Blair came close to suggesting in the immediate aftermath of the July 7 attacks when he insisted, to the chagrin of both the Bush administration and the Sharon government in Jerusalem, that the root causes that gave rise to terrorism, including the Israel-Palestine dispute, had to be addressed seriously if there was ever to be an end to it. For now the terrorists have no reason to desist since, from their point of view, these attacks, as well as others such as the ones in Bali and Istanbul against Western targets, actually comprise a record of considerable success. Spain has withdrawn its forces from Iraq; the Berlusconi government in Italy is under increasing domestic pressure to follow suit; and many people in Britain blame Tony Blair for putting them in the firing line. If this is even partly the case, it would be foolish to expect that even the best police work will prevent the terrorists from maintaining, to use the military term of art, their current tempo of operations. For the effectiveness of this "propaganda by deed" (the phrase is Joseph Conrad's) has been undeniable, and only in Washington does the political establishment still seem incapable of admitting as much and still seem to believe that terrorism can be extirpated by military interventions, special operations by the intelligence services, and police work. The historical record teaches a different lesson. Terrorism can often be contained and even blunted by effective military and intelligence activities, but it can only be defeated by political compromise and negotiation. For when terrorists represent a considerable constituency of opinion as the IRA did, and these extremists most definitely do their ability to continue fighting is almost infinite. Sooner or later, such negotiations will have to start, as it is widely reported that they have already begun between the US and Iraqi authorities and the Baathist insurgents in Iraq. The alternative is treating the Islamic immigrant populations of Europe like a vast fifth column, and that choice would be a disaster for Europe and for the Islamic world. It is true that negotiating with mass murderers is the opposite of justice. But what adult ever thought history was just? David Reiff covered the war in Iraq and is writing a book about Islam in Europe. -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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