[nasional_list] [ppiindia] To Europe, Bush is only creating more terrorists
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:18:05 +0100
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**http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/29/opinion/edpfaff.php
To Europe, Bush is only creating more terrorists
William Pfaff
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2006
PARIS The difference between official American and European perceptions
of terrorism has serious practical consequences for trans-Atlantic cooperation.
At the police and intelligence level, all goes reasonably well, or did
until the public uproar in Europe about alleged official cooperation with the
CIA's secret "rendition" and interrogation operations.
On the other hand, last Monday, France blocked a proposed NATO-European
Union meeting on terrorism because NATO "was not intended to be the world's
gendarme." It is a military defense alliance of equal partners. A French
diplomat said, "we do not wish to have NATO involved in everything, or imposing
its agenda on the EU."
This is part of France's consistent opposition to equally consistent
American efforts to turn NATO into an agent of U.S. policy, and to convince the
EU's members that NATO should be the exclusive security organization of the
Western alliance, and that Europe should abandon its embryonic independent
security policy and European rapid reaction force.
There is nothing new in this this trans-Atlantic disagreement, but it
does point to a serious terrorism issue: how the threat is to be defined, which
in turn implies how it should be met.
The Bush administration is firmly committed to the notion that Al Qaeda
presents a military problem that requires a military solution. It has to stick
to this story or else it has no explanation for the invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq. So President George W. Bush keeps making speeches about Al Qaeda's
supposed conviction that it could go from success in Iraq to mobilizing all of
Islam, restoring the Grand Caliphate of the eighth and ninth centuries, and
conquering the world. That's a military problem.
The Europeans, in general, think otherwise. Rik Coolsaet, of Ghent
University and the Belgian Royal Institute for International Relations, notes
that while some European analysts agree with Washington's position, most see
terrorism in Europe as "a patchwork of self-radicalizing cells with
international contacts," lacking central direction.
Addressing The Transatlantic Dialogue on Terrorism at The Hague in
December, Coolsaet said that at most European terrorism is described as an
affair of "concentric circles around a still lethal Al Qaeda core." The first
circle is composed of "more or less structured" organizations, surrounded by a
loose and informal third circle of freelance militants.
International counterterrorism is said to have been successful in
"degrading Al Qaeda as an organization and in decreasing its ability to conduct
massive attacks." What survives is "a patchwork of homegrown networks and 'lone
wolves,' where almost everyone can be linked, at least indirectly, to almost
everyone else," but in casual and nonoperational ways.
Thus the phenomenon of Muslim extremism in Europe is largely back to what
it was before 9/11 and the panicked international reaction that followed,
"unduly exaggerating the importance of Al Qaeda."
Coolsaet notes that European security agencies have reported "a growing
tendency of self-radicalization and self-recruitment." The latter is now
thought to be more important in producing jihad candidates "than any organized
international network," possibly excepting the networks recruiting for Iraq.
This radicalization of young Muslim militants in Europe is superficially
religious, but usually takes place outside mosques and "more often than not
involves individuals with college education."
The sources of extremism are social and political alienation, exclusion
(and unemployment) among the offspring of immigrant communities, but the
international drama mobilizes them.
Coolsaet says that when Bush declares that America is fighting jihadists
in Iraq so as not to fight them at home, most European counterterrorism
officials find that just the opposite is true: The more the fighting in Iraq
and Afghanistan intensifies, the more the number of would-be terrorists in
Europe increases.
He has a reassuring comment, however, on the trajectory of terrorism. To
reidentify himself as a jihadist, the recruit must dissociate himself from his
own society, politicize his views and look for groups with a similar
radicalized worldview. "Groupthink gradually eliminates alternative views,
simplifies reality," and causes the candidate-terrorist to "dehumanize" all who
disagree - especially his fellow-Muslims.
"Ultimately, this strategy is self-defeating and will signify these
groups' defeat, as was the case with Europe's left-wing terrorist groups in the
1970s, and the anarchist terrorists in the 1890s." It isolates them from the
community on whose behalf they think they are acting.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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