|
âAl Qaeda no longer a corporate entityâ
Al Qaeda is no longer the âcorporate entityâ it was. It has been âfranchisedâ with local groups sympathetic to its worldview operating on their own, according to a noted scholar.
| If that's the case, and it almost certainly is, we can consider it broken up. Now comes the tedious task of destroying each of the pieces its broken into. So this would be Phase II of the WoT. |
Dr Mamoun Fandy, senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace, told a discussion on terrorism sponsored by Newseum at the National Press Club Monday evening that true international cooperation was essential to deal with the phenomenon of terrorism which, he emphasised, is not new. He said the United States could not go it alone and should have learnt from the experience and knowledge of countries like Egypt which had dealt with extremist radical Islamists since 1981.
| I agree with that. The Egyptian experience involved killing large numbers of them and jugging the rest for extended periods. Syria took the same approach. Jordan slaughtered Paleos in droves and kicked them the hell out of their country â remember Black September? We don't have to go it alone, but if we had to we could. Luckily there are alliances, some old and enduring, some temporary and shifting. |
Others who took part in the âback and forthâ discussion were Steve Coll of the Washington Post, Peter Bergen of the Johns Hopkins University and Judith Kipper of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms Kipper said there was no evidence so far that Al Qaeda was behind the Madrid attacks. What âevidenceâ had come out so far could turn out to have been âplanted.â
| On the other hand, having ETA say "Noooooo! No! It wudn't us!" and having Qaeda say "We dunnit and we're glad" would seem to implicate them, wouldn't it? And the guys they've been arresting have all had turbans. |
She said terrorism had been with mankind since the dawn of history and even the Al Qaeda had been active for over two decades. However, the United States had made the 9/11 attacks as the âreference pointâ for terrorism.
| Military action has been around since the dawn of time â the wall at Jericho dates to 8000 B.C., and I'm sure they didn't build it to keep the wind off. The Japanese had been beating up East Asia for 10 or 15 years before we made Pearl Harbor the "reference point" for WWII. |
It should be realised that terrorism was a global and not a country-specific phenomenon, she added. She criticised the American approach based on âyou are with us or against us,â arguing that it was ânot something black and whiteâ nor, for that matter, simple.
| Yeah, yeah. Everything's shades of gray. But some shades of gray are much darker than others. And sometimes if you destroy one gray spot others tend to blanch â viz. Sammy and Muammar. In corner, wearing really, really light gray trunks, you have us. In the other corner, wearing really, really dark gray trunks, you have the Islamists. Trying to scurry into the audience, wearing yellow, you have France and now Señor Zapatero. |
She said such factors as culture, history and language must be taken into account while dealing with terrorism. She said it was not to be assumed that all terrorists were psychotic.
| I quite agree. Some are schizophrenic. And some are quite rational and their going for the usual objectives: money, power, and world domination. |
One side of their character was normal, as in the case of certain 9/11 hijackers, and one side was fanatical.
| Oh, yeah. I forgot the bipolar guys. |
What was important to understand was where the roots of fanaticism lay and how they could be dealt with effectively. She said fanaticism was not confined to Islam; it was present among followers of all religions.
| Islamists are the ones exploding, lady. You don't find devout Lutherans doing that. And I'm quite in favor of disposing of the loons who use the same tactics. Blow up Kony and I'll applaud, as will the rest of the world, at least the part that's heard of him. |
There were 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and âwe have to live with them.â There were very few among them who were terrorists, something that those fighting terrorism needed to know and understand.
| It only takes a small percentage of 1.2 billion to make a formidably aggravating force. And considering the fact that they're packed cheek to jowl in places like Pakland, the job ain't gonna be easy. |
The moderator of the discussion asked the panel if it was true that to the average Muslim the US war against terrorism looked like a war against Islam. Dr Fandy replied that there was a âdeep convictionâ in Muslim countries that it was not a war on terrorism but a war on Islam. He said the US should learn from Muslim states which had dealt with terrorism for many years, and in a country like Egypt, successfully. He said the Americans do not listen and pointed out that President Husni Mubarakâs warnings on terrorism through the years had been ignored. He said the Egyptian government in the end had convinced the people of the country that extremism was harmful to them and any support extended to it would be at the cost of their own well-being.
| That was after they outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, shoot lots of them, rounded up as many of the rest that they could find, and jugged them. |
Egypt had been able to isolate terrorist groups with the help of the Egyptian people and through cooperation with other countries. He said America could not âconduct foreign policy through slogans.â
| I prefer gunships, myself. |
He called on the US to work hard to isolate Al Qaeda and to learn to separate it from mainstream Islam.
| We've been playing the game. Bush is the one who went around looking stupid as he talked about the Religion of Peaceâ¢. Mainstream Islam has embraced al-Qaeda and just loves it, for the same reason people love movies with really neat car chases. |
He said the Western mediaâs coverage of terrorism was partisan, lacking in thought and carelessly done. The media had taken an âideologicalâ position on the issue.
| I can agree with that statement, for entirely opposite reasons than the speaker has in mind... |
Ms Kipper intervened during one exchange to stress that the media had been often crass and insensitive on the issue of terrorism. There were 22 million Saudi Arabian citizens and all of them had been projected as âbad guysâ, something that flew in face of reality. She said Saudi Arabia was a very conservative country and it had cooperated with the US, but it did not wish everything that it did to be publicised. At that point, Dr Fandy said that President Pervez Musharraf had not been swayed by a phone call from President Bush to make Pakistan join the war against terrorism after 9/11. It was the Saudis who had persuaded Gen Musharraf to throw in his lot with Washington.
| I thought it was Bush's threat to personally kill Perv with a barbecue fork, but I might be wrong... |
He said without being asked or without an announcement, Saudi Arabia had increased oil production immediately after 9/11 because it did not want a shortage of oil in the West because of panic. He said the United States should realise that globalisation was for everyone, including the United States itself. No country should continue to pursue its self-interest at the cost of others or by showing indifference to their concerns. However, Mr Coll disagreed with that and said the Saudi record on cooperation was âmixed.â
| Mr. Coll is obviously very polite, though "mixed" is probably a perfectly good synonym for "two-faced." |
Ms Kipper stressed during another exchange that fanatical or extremist groups came to birth because of alienation. In countries where the young had no opportunities, no future, no democracy and no hope, fanaticism could be one alternative for them. However, she did not believe that the West should be blamed for the rise of fanaticism in the East. She said societies where fanaticism grew bore much of the responsibility for its occurrence.
| Read a book on madreassas, did she? Heard a Friday sermon? |
Governments in those countries must change their ways. Open societies where people had rights and opportunities were much less likely to be attracted to fanatical solutions than they otherwise would be.
| Open societies where people have rights and opportunities are the holy men's worst nightmare. There's no money in it for them. They'd have to get jobs, though probably as university professors. |
She was also of the view that Al Qaeda today was greatly diminished, but warned that the new cradle of terrorism was Indonesia. She said in the end it was a war of ideas. An idea cannot be defeated by force.
| Sure it can. Ask any Nazi. Ask any Manichaean. All you have to do is blow off the head holding the idea. |
As for terrorist attacks in Iraq, she said those men were not from across any border but âbad Iraqis with guns.â The way to fight them was to empower the people of Iraq. She said there is no government in Iraq, adding, âit is a country without an address.â
Posted by: Fred 2004-03-17 |
