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Stop adding fuel to the ‘terrorism’ fire

Jun 06,2017 - Last updated at Jun 06,2017

Terrorists are changing their tactics to circumvent countermeasures. As long as there is “reason” for people to commit to such horrible practices, they find means to perpetrate their crimes.

Do those people who rammed or stabbed innocent people in London last Saturday with the intention of taking lives, as others did in other European capitals, have a reason to do so?

Absolutely not.

Does the perpetrator of the heinous bombing in Manchester, two weeks ago, have any reason to kill dozens of innocent people, including children, have any reason to do so?

Again, absolutely not.

Terrorism is a threat we all face. It is indiscriminate and it is barbaric, just like the bombs in Baghdad that took the lives of dozens of people enjoying an evening out after iftar.

Although the chances of any individual being harmed in a terrorist attack are tiny, the whole point is to sow fear and deprive people of normal life.

This fear preoccupies society and exacts an enormous economic, social and psychological cost.

The cost has been exacerbated by the strategic and tactical failure of the methods chosen to combat it.

It is a strategic failure because although a coalition of dozens of countries, including superpowers, have been engaged in a so-called “war on terror” for 16 years, the terrorists continue to develop new methods and ideologies.

A major cause of failure can be rightly attributed to lack of will, indeed lack of responsibility and courage, on the part of the anti-terror powers, in diagnosing the real reasons behind the consecutive waves of terror, whether secular or “religious”.

It is perfectly right not to link the many terrorist attacks in world capitals and other locations to an immediate visible cause, but that does not mean the terrorism phenomenon grew naturally and accidentally on purely sanitised land, without causes.

In fact, there is mounting evidence that terrorism has causes; that mobilisation of religion, particularly Islamic “jihad”, was deliberately fostered and used for political goals.

It was used to fight the Soviet presence in Afghanistan decades ago, and it has been widely used recently against certain Arab regimes, mainly in Libya and Syria.

Thomas Friedman, the famous New York Times columnist who is undeservedly welcomed and respected by many even in this region, recently argued against fighting Daesh.

While calling Daesh “satanic”, he argued that the US should “back off” fighting it in order to put pressure on Russia, Iran and other adversaries.

Friedman’s utterly grotesque logic implies that it is fine for Daesh to kill civilians as long as they are “only” Iraqis, Syrians and others in this region.

Sadly, this has been the logic that world powers have followed for some time.

They create or nurture monsters for their own use. But monsters turn against their creators when they find no one else to turn against, and this is a classic case.

Simply addressing the symptoms will not make this phenomenon go away.

The notion that linking terrorism to causes, when there are tangible and real causes of course, is akin to justifying terrorism, is a self-defeating obstructive fallacy. 

Explaining is not justification.

Even the most heinous crimes must be explained, without justifying them.

Two important articles illustrate the case in point.

One is a very detailed article in the New York Times Magazine, by Scott Anderson, titled: “Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart”, published last August.

Anderson blames the 2003 war on Iraq for the continuing chaos.

The other is a recent Alternet article by American journalist Max Blumenthal.

In the “The Manchester Bombing is Blowback from the West’s Interventions and Covert Proxy Wars”, Blumenthal explains “how the US and the UK helped bring Jihadists like Salem Abedi to Libya and Syria”.

Abedi was the young British-Libyan man who blew himself up in Manchester.

The prevailing chaos in most of the Middle East, of which terrorism is a direct product, has causes.

They continue to be ignored to disguise the responsibility of a number of regional factors, including Israel, the direct role of Western intervention and the role of some regional regimes.

The governments that decided to invade Iraq, and then to wage direct or proxy wars in Libya and Syria were warned about the chaos and bloodshed that would result.

As Blumenthal argues, they put their imperial interests before the safety of their own people and are now suffering the consequences.

To continue to deal with the symptoms without recognising the root causes is futile. It is like trying to extinguish a raging fire without shutting the gas leak feeding it.

And why is the war on terror failing tactically as well?

If it was possible in the past to monitor and disable the potential terrorists, deprive them of the tools of their crimes and restrict their access to their prospective targets, this is now impossible.

Anyone now could be a “terrorist” and any disturbed individual might decide — after seeing 24-hour coverage of the latest atrocity — to become a copycat.

The tools of the crime are no more the weapons and the explosives that can be detected and dealt with preventively. There is no level of security that can deal with every threat.

 

A better approach would be to tackle the root causes and stop adding fuel to the fire.

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