... thoughtful article from "The Economist" yesterday ...
A slippery foe
Sep 24th 2001
From The Economist Global Agenda
President George Bush has promised to wage a “war on terrorism”.
He may be able to kill or capture terrorist leaders, and perhaps
even to destroy a whole terrorist organisation. But eradicating
terrorism will be impossible—it is hard enough merely defining it
AMERICA is on the verge
of war, but against whom?
First and foremost,
against whomever it was
who ordered the attacks
on New York and
Washington last week. No
reasonable person could
dispute the need to bring
the culprits to justice. It is
not yet certain, however,
who these culprits are. A
vast and furious manhunt
may soon snare those
directly involved in the
hijackings. But that is only the beginning. Mr Bush has promised more
than just a few criminal prosecutions. Before the dust from the
collapsed World Trade Centre had settled, he declared war on
terrorism itself.
Other countries eagerly followed his lead. But in promising to support
Mr Bush’s drive to “eradicate the evil of terrorism”, they may have in
mind a somewhat different set of targets. Russian president Vladimir
Putin calls Muslim separatists in Chechnya terrorists, and would be
delighted if the war on terrorism allowed him to clobber them without
the international opprobrium his troops’ brutality previously attracted.
The government of China uses the word terrorist with reference to
groups as diverse as Muslim separatists and the followers of the Dalai
Lama. Until changing tack and agreeing to a ceasefire with the
Palestinians on September 18th, the Israeli government was labelling
Yasser Arafat a second Osama bin Laden.
Strictly speaking, a terrorist is anyone who seeks to terrify others in
pursuit of his objectives. But this definition might encompass America’s
threat to bomb Afghanistan in the hope that the Taliban will be so
terrified that they hand over Mr bin Laden. Few people would agree
that such a threat constitutes an act of terrorism—but some would.
Those who talk of terrorists are usually referring to people who kill for
a cause which does not, in their view, justify killing.
It is too glib to say, as some do, that one
man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom
fighter. Liberal democracies should be able
to agree that other liberal democracies’
terrorists are terrorists, and should help
each other to apprehend them. Currently,
they don't always extradite each other's
terrorist suspects, but the recent outrages
may impel them to do so. The European
Union moved closer to a common definition of terrorism on September
20th, which should lead to smoother co-operation between member
states.
In the hunt for those who attacked America last week, however, Mr
Bush will have to seek the help not just of liberal democracies, but of
less reputable countries as well. He wants, for example, the
co-operation of Pakistan’s military regime, and the acquiescence of the
unelected rulers of China. He is right to seek these things, for the
same reason that, in a more extreme situation, the Allies were right to
join forces with Stalin to defeat Hitler. But if he is serious about
waging war on all terrorists everywhere, he may have to ask awkward
questions of some of his allies.
In the twentieth century, the worst terrorism was perpetrated by
governments on their own citizens. Fascist rulers from Germany to
Argentina ordered dissidents to be abducted and murdered in the
night. Various communist regimes killed an estimated 100m of their
own people. Terrorists without the resources of a state have never
been able to murder a fraction as many.
Since the end of the Cold War, the
number of dictatorships has declined,
but several autocratic regimes still use
terror to maintain their grip on power.
Suspected subversives do not live long
in North Korea or Iraq, and Zimbabwean
president Robert Mugabe’s henchmen
break heads and burn houses to scare
would-be opposition supporters into
voting for the ruling party instead.
Freely and fairly elected governments,
by contrast, rarely feel the need to
terrorise their own people. So the kind
of terrorist acts that worry Westerners
are usually perpetrated by small bands
of extremists. Several mild and tolerant
democracies nonetheless include among
their citizens groups so angry that they
think violence is a reasonable means to
their ends.
Until recently, the best-known terrorist groups had finite and easily
comprehensible aims. Most belonged to ethnic or religious minorities
and believed that they were victimised in some way by the majority
among whom they lived. The Palestinian terrorists who were most
active internationally, and mostly in Europe and the Middle East,
during the 1970s and 1980s, had a specific goal: the destruction of
Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state. Today ETA murders
Spaniards in the hope of winning a separate homeland for the
Basques, a small ethnic group who live mostly in northern Spain. The
IRA’s long terror campaign aimed to reunite Ireland so that Catholics,
currently a minority in Northern Ireland, could become part of a
majority. The Tamil Tigers set off bombs in Colombo in the hope that
Tamils will be allowed to secede from Sri Lanka.
Loathsome as these traditional terrorists are, they have usually
observed some limits. They have aimed for spectacle rather than
carnage: to have many people watching, but not too many dead. Most
aspire to govern. Excessive savagery, they feel, would repel potential
supporters.
The outrage of September 11th, however, could prove to be the latest
and bloodiest example of a new type of terrorism. These kind of
terrorists are fewer in number than in the past, but more murderous.
Several causes that once inspired terrorism no longer do. With
communism discredited, red revolutionaries cause trouble only in the
few remaining countries they rule. Those who used terror tactics to
kick European imperialists out of Africa and Asia are now either in
charge of their own countries, or willing to put up with those who are.
But the terrorist groups that remain are increasingly likely to pursue
implausible objectives with unprecedented ferocity.
In 1995, for example, Timothy McVeigh, a young white American, killed
168 people by blowing up a government building in Oklahoma. He had
no concrete political objectives; he just hated the American
government and wanted to kill as many of its employees as he could.
The same year, an apocalyptic cult called Aum Shinrikyo released
nerve gas on the Tokyo subway. The aim was to kill as many people
as possible in order to precipitate the end of the world. Had the
gassing been more expertly carried out, thousands would have
perished.
Their unrealistic aims make these new
terrorists more terrifying. No possible
concession could have satisfied Shoko
Asahara, the guru behind the Tokyo
subway attack, or Mr McVeigh. Mr bin
Laden’s objectives seem less insane
than Mr Asahara’s or Mr McVeigh’s, but
still wholly unreasonable. According to a
declaration published in 1998, Mr bin
Laden wants three things. First,
American troops should leave Saudi
Arabia, where they have been stationed
since the Gulf war. The presence of
infidels so close to Mecca is, he believes,
an insult to Islam. Second, he wants
America to stop persecuting, as he sees
it, Iraq. Third, he wants Jerusalem
returned to Muslim control. It is likely
that, in common with most Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East,
he would not be content with anything less than the destruction of
the state of Israel. In pursuit of his aims, he calls on every Muslim to
kill Americans and their allies “wherever he finds them and whenever
he can”.
Religion is usually a force for good. But when terrorists are convinced
that they are doing God’s will, they often see no virtue in restraint.
Whoever ordered the attacks on America last week certainly didn’t. Mr
bin Laden’s twisted interpretation of the Koran, like the Aum Shinrikyo
cult’s odd synthesis of Buddhism and Hinduism, justifies murder on a
scale that previous terrorists would have balked at. Since they expect
to be rewarded in the next life, they may be willing to commit suicide
in order to kill others. Such fanaticism is hard to defend against, and
impossible to deter. No threat is likely to bother a man who will
happily blow himself to atoms fighting the Great Satan. Such a man
may even wish to provoke retaliation, in the hope that it will drive
peaceable Muslims to join the jihad.
Islam is not a violent religion, but the
Muslim countries of the Middle East are the
world’s most fertile source of terrorists. The
region’s mix of religious and political
grievances is uniquely explosive. Apart from
the oil sheikhdoms, most Arab countries are
poor. None is a liberal democracy, so
ordinary Arabs have little say in their own government. Most cannot
safely complain about their own rulers, but they can lash out against
Israel and its American backers. The treatment of Palestinians under
Israeli occupation infuriates Arabs of many nations. Faith lends
righteousness to their fury. Although Islam enjoins respect for
Christians and Jews, extremist clerics preach hatred of the infidel
“crusaders” who sully Arabian soil with their unholy feet. Against this
background, Mr Bush’s use of the word “crusade” to describe his war
on terrorism was especially unfortunate.
The greatest fear for the future is that terrorists might lay hands on
weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear weapons are extremely hard to
make. But it might be possible to steal a small one from, say, the
former Soviet Union’s arsenal. And if men as fanatical as those who
attacked America last week obtained the bomb, they would not
scruple to use it. A suicidal zealot with a nuke in a suitcase is a
horrifying, if unlikely, prospect.
Biological weapons are a more plausible threat. They are easier to
make than nuclear weapons, and easier to smuggle than bulky
chemical weapons. A cloud of anthrax spores released over a city
could infect tens of thousands. Those who failed to find treatment in
time could die. Smallpox, eradicated in the 1970s after a global
vaccination campaign, could be revived in a laboratory. If tighter
airport security makes a repeat of last week’s attacks too difficult,
terrorists may try to unleash germs instead. So far, Aum Shinrikyo is
the only terrorist group known to have acquired biological toxins:
anthrax and botulism culture were found in the cult’s headquarters
beneath Mount Fuji. They never used them, because their leaders
were all arrested after they attacked commuters with nerve gas (a
chemical weapon). But someday, an equally mad but more competent
gang of terrorists may succeed where the Aum cult failed. Just in case,
the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta have ordered an extra forty
million doses of smallpox vaccine.
So, however successful America is at apprehending or killing Mr bin
Laden, and smashing his terrorist “network”, it seems inevitable that
other terrorists, plotting some sort of mayhem, will remain a threat.
How will anyone ever know when Mr Bush's “war” on terrorism is
over—or who won? |
