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September 18, 2004
Dealing with the Devil
Browsing in my tea break yesterday morning, I came across a very good idea for overcoming the terrorist problem. Having given this a lot of thought, reecently, I have come to the conclusion (again - I was a target in another life and another hemisphere for "Freedom Fighters" supported and funded by Mr Blair and his cronies - for Humanitarian purposes of course!) that terrorism can rarely be beaten by military means. Militarily, once you have created a nuclear desert of the supposed terrorist base country you have won - but the "collateral damages" to the innocent civilian population may be rather higher than the net result!
In any serious action against terrorism you have two problems: first, to contain and limit the options for action of the Terrorist. Second, to reduce the desire to resort to terrorism and to limit the base from which recruits can be drawn. Present events show that No 1 on this list is not as easy as it seems, but, the much maligned Israeli "Fence" has reduced the access to target areas, the latest bombings have shown that the bombers are not able to reach the favored targets with the ease they formerly enjoyed. The facts that Afghanistan is slowly falling back into the hands of the terrorist gangs and that Iraq is also being taken over by these thugs who seem to operate with impunity in most areas away from towns and sometimes even inside cities show that we have not even begun to appreciate the necessity for the second and even more important phase.
From G'day Mate I found a suggestion which ultimately comes from the blog of A E Brain which has a great deal of merit. I hope that someone, somewhere in government studies it and gives it the consideration it deserves! His suggestion that we provide a home and compensation for those (who may well be Muslims and from countries other than our own!) be provided with compensation and perhaps a pension, and the option of citizenship of the country in whose service they died is a sensible one. It shows we care, it shows that we take care of those who work for us, and it shows that we are not the enemy!
And that is what we now face: the problem of addressing No 2 on my list, of cutting off the arguments for persuading the young, the frightened, and the bereaved as a source of recruits for the men of evil who run these terrorist organisations. It is no good simply continuing a military campaign of containment; we have to win over the hearts and minds of the young, the moderates, and those who must eventually take charge in their own societies, and cut off all the Hydra's heads. That cannot be done from London, Washington, or Moscow, it has to be done locally by the populations from whom these malignant monsters spring.
Blair and the Irish Prime Minister are currently at Leeds Castle trying to persuade Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams that the terrorist war in Ireland is over, that the IRA will disband, that the normal political process should take over. I think Hell will freeze over first! Paisley believes (with some justification!) that Blair is disingenuous and has sold the majority population of the North down the river, Adams believes (again with some justification) that having bombed and murdered his way into the Northern Ireland Assembly, his one guarantee of staying there is to make sure that he has the IRA as a backup!
This will never be resolved until the two governments, that of the Irish Republic and that of the UK, agree to work together to address the legitimate concerns of the communities of both North and South and to cut off the flow of cash and recruits to the men of violence on both sides. Visit Dublin and most Dubliners can point out the homes of the Commanders of the IRA; vist the North and the same applies to the "Unionist" side's various "Armies". The truth is somewhat different; these organisations are now the local racketeers - a local Mafia - they run the protection rackets, the drug smuggling and selling, and the prostitution rackets. This is well known - but the governments on both sides seem to be reluctant to crack down and close these malignant organisations down. One wonders why? Who benefits from allowing them to continue?
No, the war on terrorism will not be won simply by force of arms. This is a many-headed Hydra and it needs careful co-ordination to take out the weapon carriers, the funders, the supporters, and the organisers. It needs a campaign to turn the populations from which they draw their recruits into allies who will shut off the ready supply of footsoldiers, it needs the local communities to shut them down, deny them aid, deny them the platform to spread their poison. That is where the next phase of the war on terror needs to be focussed. This is now about hearts and minds, about reassuring the people caught in the middle, about providing accurate and supportable information, about dealing effectively with genuine grievances, and about ensuring that the recruiting dries up.
Terrorism is the legacy of the Cold War - a war fought by surrogates of both sides in remote areas away from the main protagonists. It was successful beyond their wildest dreams - but now that the Genie is out of the bottle it will not go back until the populations who currently see terrorism as the only way forward, the only way to make their feelings known and to get their aspirations heard, can be persuaded to reject it utterly as a legitimate strategy will we finally defeat this scourge.
Let us pray that our leaders can recognise their own role in the creation of this monster and find a way to kill it before it kills us all!
Posted by The Gray Monk at September 18, 2004 10:44 AM