This War on Terror
A war against terrorism cannot be won. This simple fact, criminally neglected by Bush, Sharon and Blair, becomes more apparent with every addition to the list of cities that currently features New York, Washington, Bali, Istanbul and Madrid, with every Israeli soldier killed in Gaza and the West Bank, with every mutilated American body caught on camera in Iraq.
Yet terrorist organisations are not states. A terrorist movement cannot be defeated simply by capturing strategic cities within its command, and nor is its 'army' likely to desert when faced with the prospect of overwhelming force being used against it. It consists of fanatics - fundamentalists who fight not for a living but for what they believe in. Such men and women are very much prepared - even willing - to die for their cause.
Consequently, it is very difficult to see how terrorism could ever truly be beaten by superior military might - Osama Bin Laden is not going to surrender, and even if he were to, there would be scant chance of his followers doing the same. It follows that fighting a war on terrorism is a decidedly questionable strategy.
In response to this, though, many supporters of the war we and others are fighting claim that, whilst it may not be possible to illicit a surrender from the likes of Bin Laden or Hamas leaders, we can still effectively defeat their movements militarily. We can, it is alleged, render them "inactive" by "removing, or otherwise dealing with" their leaders.
Which basically means we kill the lot of them.
That such a policy could be supported by serious academics beggars belief. Aside from the lamentable fact that it results in countless cases of "collateral damage" it is utterly counterproductive.
Such sentiments can only be reinforced with every bomb dropped on Falluja, with every "targeted assassination" in Gaza and with every bellicose, confrontational word uttered by George W Bush.
Those on the right, though, adamantly refuse to accept this. They insist that there are merely a number of "evil men and women" present in certain societies polluting the mindset of the populace. These people are "beyond salvation" - they will be seeking to attack the West for the rest of their lives whatever we do - and thus, in order to prevent the success of their evil plans, we must eliminate them by any means necessary.
However, this "top-down" approach to counter-terrorism is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that once these "evil" people are removed, none will take their place - that once their irrational rhetoric ceases, so too will the bombings.
This goes against all empirical evidence from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past four years, where the one thing that has been constant with regards to Hamas - through countless assassinations of its top commanders and leaders - is its ability to inflict pain and suffering upon Israeli citizens and troops.
Fact: some people hold extreme views and never cease to seek death and destruction. But the only way to deal with such people is to alienate them within their own society. Provide them with justification for their views - in the form of air-strikes or assassinations - and not only will you ensure that more come to share their unshakable resolve to attack you (i.e. more potential leaders go "beyond salvation"), but you will also provide the abhorrent leadership with countless "foot soldiers" prepared to do its dirty work. People support extremist movements not because of clever manipulation on behalf of extremist leaders, but because of decidedly un-clever reactions to extremism on behalf of Western governments.
How, then, should we act? The way to deal with terrorism is not to rise to any bait, but to identify why it is that so many are prepared to go along with its abhorrent ideals. The Israeli-Palestine situation must be fully and finally resolved. Iraq must be put under genuine UN, then Iraqi control. These two measures - so simple on paper, but so complex in reality - would do far more than any "war on terror" to protect citizens of the world.
This does not mean we should just sit back and let bombers strike - nobody in their right mind would deny that sensible security measures protect lives. But "sensible security measures" do not involve antagonising the very people who are so courted by our enemies.
Our knee-jerk reactions will be our downfall.
20th May 2004