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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (9174)	3/21/2004 12:28:36 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Respond to of 81568

Spanish-style backlash for PM? 17mar04 THE Madrid atrocity is testimony to the fanaticism of the jihadists, the epic scope of their revolutionary enterprise and the changed world after September 11, 2001. Islamic terrorism is a threat reverberating from the caves of history whose medieval nature defies the modern and secular mind. For 2 1/2 years it has provoked retaliation and denial among its many targets. Madrid is another warning that this poorly named war on terrorism will be very long, bloody and unpredictable. If it is the work of al-Qa'ida, the message is that the terrorists retain an ability to kill in scale in Western capitals. It shows that Islamic terrorism has a powerful regenerative capacity. Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden will be more a propaganda victory. Al-Qa'ida is a religiously based ideological movement that recruits and multiplies. It fuses politics, religion and historical grievance. Listen to bin Laden: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his messenger," he said post September 11. "There is America, hit by God in one of its softest spots. Its greatest buildings were destroyed, thank God ... these events have split the world into two camps - the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels." Like all fanatics, bin Laden's appeal lies in the purity of his extremism. His geopolitical goals are vast - the seizure of sovereign states, the elimination of corrupt Muslim governments, the liquidation of Israel and the demise of the US and its allies. Bin Laden's message is that the US is decadent and weak. Al-Qa'ida inspires loyalty off the back of its unique claim to be able to defeat the US. It has instilled the ultimate fear within the Bush administration that the terrorists will deploy weapons of mass destruction against civilians, killing tens of thousands at a minimum. It is this fear that drives George W. Bush's policy. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says that once the terrorists obtain these weapons, they "would not hesitate one minute in using them". Once it is shown that governments cannot defend their own people, then the established order begins to disintegrate. Bush is correct to brand this a war. It is an asymmetrical war without front or rear, waged across the globe by computer and horseback, a war of weapons and ideas still in its early phase. Madrid must be seen against this backdrop. It is disturbing because it suggests that al-Qa'ida has found a new power -- to change governments. It is also disturbing because it suggests that the US and its allies are not necessarily winning this war. It highlights, again, the strategic dilemma at the heart of the Iraq invasion - has it helped or hindered the war against terrorism? Has it made the world more or less safe? Were Bush and John Howard right or wrong? One of the strategic arguments against the Iraq exercise mounted in 2002 by many critics, including George Bush Sr's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, was that "an attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardise, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken". The war against terrorism is nearly three years old. Its leaders, Bush, Tony Blair, Howard and Spain's outgoing Jose Maria Aznar (among many others) are being judged on the results - and such judgments will be formed against ongoing attacks, as the Spanish poll shows. The Howard Government is correct in its argument that Iraq has little intrinsic importance for al-Qa'ida and it is wrong in its dogmatic insistence that our role in Iraq was irrelevant as a risk factor. This is a moment for politicians to be very careful. Australia, as ASIO chief Dennis Richardson argued in his 2003 Newspaper Publishers speech, is a target as a Western Christian nation "because we are who we are". The notion that we can buy permanent immunity by pretending to be somebody else is an illusion. Politicians who preach this are in denial. Who, exactly, should we be like - Indonesia, Spain, Turkey, all of whom are targets for various reasons? Britain, France and Germany have been named as targets. So has Kofi Annan. One of the UN's heroes, Sergio Vieira de Mello, was a victim of terrorists. When Howard says that Iraq was never an al-Qa'ida priority, he is right. Afghanistan was far more important because, in effect, it was an al-Qa'ida state where it trained terrorists for dispatch across the globe. Australia was a terrorist target long before the Iraq war. Have people forgotten about Bali? Any idea that it is Iraq that turned Australia into a terrorist target is nonsense. It is, however, untenable for Howard to argue that our role in Iraq made no difference. On what basis does this assertion stand? Our role in Iraq revealed the intimacy between Australia and the US. Howard boasted that these ties had never been as strong. Australia's role in Iraq was far more prominent that that of Spain's. Indeed, Spain did not contribute troops to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The remark of Police Commissioner Mick Keelty that the Madrid attack was linked to Spain's role in Iraq has wide currency among the experts. Yes, it is hard to prove one way or another. And there are other factors such as the history between Spain and Islam that has no parallel whatsoever in Australia. Howard gives weight to the views of Richardson. Yet Richardson said last year that our alliance with the US and that we were "early and actively engaged" in the war on terrorism "does contribute to us being a target". Isn't this just common sense? Isn't this what most Australians would think anyway? Howard makes a mistake by pretending there was no terrorist risk in our Iraq involvement. Of course there was a risk. The Australian people aren't mugs - they are quite capable of endorsing that role while knowing that it carried risks. Most wars aren't risk-free. The Howard Government suffers from its denial syndrome. Its obsession to protect itself has become a liability. theaustralian.news.com.au