Terrorists are neither freedom fighters nor martyrs. They are brutal killers.
Till September 11, 2001, Americans considered terrorism to be a problem only in the rest of the world and largely attributed to poverty, poor governance either as result of weak and corrupt leadership or dictatorial regimes oppressing their people or denying them sub-national aspirations. Terrorism in these cases was therefore not really terrorism but either a cry for freedom or for greater political liberties and greater economic opportunities. Remove the inherent causes, give the people democracies, abolish human rights abuses, and terrorism and violence would disappear, was the mantra. “Freedom fighters” from such countries were given shelter and even encouragement by an indulgent West.
September 11 changed all that. The war on terror now became solely America’s war and the rest of the world would simply have to wait till America secured itself. Now the world was told that these mindless acts against the civilized world were the handiwork of those who opposed the West’s freedoms even as their cousins in the East were violently demanding freedoms and democracy! Human rights were no longer relevant, extra-ordinary renditions -- where suspects were picked up from various countries and deported to their country of origin knowing that they would be tortured -- became a well laid out drill. Horrendous practices of torture in the Abu Ghraib, Baghram and Guantanamo detention camps became common knowledge and secret prisons in parts of Europe run by the Americans were routine.
It is most often said that to remove terrorism one must go to the root cause. The truth is that poverty does not necessarily cause terrorism nor does prosperity necessarily remove it. If poverty and unemployment were the main causes then terrorism should have occurred in the poorer parts of India like North Bihar first before it hit Punjab, the most prosperous state in India or in Jammu and Kashmir with a poverty ratio of only 3.5 against the national average of 26%. Both these terrorisms manifested religious overtones and had considerable access to external support.
In the Muslim world, terrorism has not occurred in the poorest sections but where radical leaders have been able to spread their radical beliefs among the impressionable young. The Binori Mosque in Karachi or the Akora Khattak seminary are the prominent ones; the countless madrassas in the NWFP and Balochistan bordering Afghanistan have spawned jehadi volunteers for years and continue to do so. So also in Muridke near Lahore, where the likes of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba recruit their volunteers. Poverty and unemployment do generate frustration and anger, which religious sects and populist politicians exploit by making the young compete under peer pressure for a ‘cause’, whatever that may be.
Terrorism by itself does not lead to a solution or attainment of goals without massive and sustained help from a major power. Yet terrorists do find it more possible to disrupt activities or exploit a situation. Terrorists in Kashmir affected the tourist industry that brought economic distress to the predominantly Muslim community whose cause they said they were fighting. Up to a point communities remain stoic about such disruptions hoping that they would benefit. Inevitably, fatigue sets in. Recruitment to the cause dwindles as has happened in Kashmir increasingly in the last few years, 70% of the recruits have been from outside Kashmir, mostly from Pakistan. Similarly, the Baloch may continue to disrupt the gas pipelines in their province but this will not shake Islamabad unless there is major force backing the Baloch consistently over a period of time to help them attain their goals.
Territorial conflicts or nationalistic issues are easier to understand and handle because there are theoretical possibilities of a compromise or adjustments. Religious conflicts, of any kind, and in the present context one must inevitably speak only of Islamic conflicts arising from a desire to impose shariah through jehad, have no boundaries and cannot contemplate compromises. It can only be exhausted because anything else is appeasement and therefore feeding the cause. This does not mean that the present US pattern of tackling Islamic terrorism is the right course. The US went into Afghanistan with all guns blazing but the Taliban and Al Qaeda disappeared into neighbouring Pakistan and even into Europe; maybe even into the US. The American-led sledgehammer in Iraq has spawned terrorism of the most vicious kind where none existed before March 2003.
In India, we have let terrorism in Kashmir acquire religious overtones. It has become a Hindu-Muslim affair; a kind of an extension of the Pakistani two-nation theory extending into the Muslim world which makes us constantly look defensively to our own Muslims and worry about them. Our own Muslims are as much Indian as the rest of us and as disgruntled or satisfied as the rest of us. In reality Kashmir is a territorial struggle for geo-political advantages. We should be treating the terrorists as Pakistani terrorists but instead we bestow honour on some of them by routinely describing them as fidayeen. Majnu was fida on Laila; the sufi saints are fida on their God; a terrorist is a terrorist and not a fidayeen fighter and he is no martyr when he dies. He is only a brutal killer.
Many in India are given to wishful thinking that peace between India and Pakistan and the transient general bon homie of today will lead to an end to terrorism in India. It will not, given the mindset that prevails in Rawalpindi and Islamabad along with the madrassa culture which collectively dreams of a destabilised, if not balkanised, India. If Pak-inspired terrorism in India were to come to an end where would all these jehadis be sent? To the rest of India, perhaps? Or to Afghanistan, Central Asia or even further into Europe? Keeping them in Pakistan would be suicidal for the Pakistani establishment. Islamic radicals and terrorists may not have yet developed a replica of the Comintern but they do seem to have a Jehad’s Rapid Deployment Force as a counter to Centcom.
In her book, ‘Modern Jihad-Tracing the dollars behind the Terror Networks’, Loretta Napoleoni says the ‘terror industry’ is worth US$ 1.5 trillion. Linked to this are various other multi-billion dollar ‘service industries’ like heroin dealings and warlords, human trafficking and recruiters, black financiers and arms smuggling and dealers. All have a stake in this lucrative business and vested interests in its continuance.
Terrorism of any kind, especially that sponsored as state policy, is a never-ending war. It will never disappear completely and it will be difficult to determine that the war has been won. Whenever claims are made that the situation is under control, terrorists leave behind a violent visiting card. Given the extent and nature of terrorism, the war on terror is a marathon race sometimes run at a sprint and sometimes on a treadmill. It needs collective political will to stay the course beyond the next election, courage and skill of the security forces, and above all, accurate and timely intelligence. This has to be not just pre-emptive intelligence about camps, training, weapons and strikes but one of the most crucial aspects that sustains terrorism. This relates to strategic intelligence about the financing of terrorism, increasingly the most intricate and the most difficult part of intelligence collection.
Source : The Hindstan Times, November 23, 2005
Till September 11, 2001, Americans considered terrorism to be a problem only in the rest of the world and largely attributed to poverty, poor governance either as result of weak and corrupt leadership or dictatorial regimes oppressing their people or denying them sub-national aspirations. Terrorism in these cases was therefore not really terrorism but either a cry for freedom or for greater political liberties and greater economic opportunities. Remove the inherent causes, give the people democracies, abolish human rights abuses, and terrorism and violence would disappear, was the mantra. “Freedom fighters” from such countries were given shelter and even encouragement by an indulgent West.
September 11 changed all that. The war on terror now became solely America’s war and the rest of the world would simply have to wait till America secured itself. Now the world was told that these mindless acts against the civilized world were the handiwork of those who opposed the West’s freedoms even as their cousins in the East were violently demanding freedoms and democracy! Human rights were no longer relevant, extra-ordinary renditions -- where suspects were picked up from various countries and deported to their country of origin knowing that they would be tortured -- became a well laid out drill. Horrendous practices of torture in the Abu Ghraib, Baghram and Guantanamo detention camps became common knowledge and secret prisons in parts of Europe run by the Americans were routine.
It is most often said that to remove terrorism one must go to the root cause. The truth is that poverty does not necessarily cause terrorism nor does prosperity necessarily remove it. If poverty and unemployment were the main causes then terrorism should have occurred in the poorer parts of India like North Bihar first before it hit Punjab, the most prosperous state in India or in Jammu and Kashmir with a poverty ratio of only 3.5 against the national average of 26%. Both these terrorisms manifested religious overtones and had considerable access to external support.
In the Muslim world, terrorism has not occurred in the poorest sections but where radical leaders have been able to spread their radical beliefs among the impressionable young. The Binori Mosque in Karachi or the Akora Khattak seminary are the prominent ones; the countless madrassas in the NWFP and Balochistan bordering Afghanistan have spawned jehadi volunteers for years and continue to do so. So also in Muridke near Lahore, where the likes of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba recruit their volunteers. Poverty and unemployment do generate frustration and anger, which religious sects and populist politicians exploit by making the young compete under peer pressure for a ‘cause’, whatever that may be.
Terrorism by itself does not lead to a solution or attainment of goals without massive and sustained help from a major power. Yet terrorists do find it more possible to disrupt activities or exploit a situation. Terrorists in Kashmir affected the tourist industry that brought economic distress to the predominantly Muslim community whose cause they said they were fighting. Up to a point communities remain stoic about such disruptions hoping that they would benefit. Inevitably, fatigue sets in. Recruitment to the cause dwindles as has happened in Kashmir increasingly in the last few years, 70% of the recruits have been from outside Kashmir, mostly from Pakistan. Similarly, the Baloch may continue to disrupt the gas pipelines in their province but this will not shake Islamabad unless there is major force backing the Baloch consistently over a period of time to help them attain their goals.
Territorial conflicts or nationalistic issues are easier to understand and handle because there are theoretical possibilities of a compromise or adjustments. Religious conflicts, of any kind, and in the present context one must inevitably speak only of Islamic conflicts arising from a desire to impose shariah through jehad, have no boundaries and cannot contemplate compromises. It can only be exhausted because anything else is appeasement and therefore feeding the cause. This does not mean that the present US pattern of tackling Islamic terrorism is the right course. The US went into Afghanistan with all guns blazing but the Taliban and Al Qaeda disappeared into neighbouring Pakistan and even into Europe; maybe even into the US. The American-led sledgehammer in Iraq has spawned terrorism of the most vicious kind where none existed before March 2003.
In India, we have let terrorism in Kashmir acquire religious overtones. It has become a Hindu-Muslim affair; a kind of an extension of the Pakistani two-nation theory extending into the Muslim world which makes us constantly look defensively to our own Muslims and worry about them. Our own Muslims are as much Indian as the rest of us and as disgruntled or satisfied as the rest of us. In reality Kashmir is a territorial struggle for geo-political advantages. We should be treating the terrorists as Pakistani terrorists but instead we bestow honour on some of them by routinely describing them as fidayeen. Majnu was fida on Laila; the sufi saints are fida on their God; a terrorist is a terrorist and not a fidayeen fighter and he is no martyr when he dies. He is only a brutal killer.
Many in India are given to wishful thinking that peace between India and Pakistan and the transient general bon homie of today will lead to an end to terrorism in India. It will not, given the mindset that prevails in Rawalpindi and Islamabad along with the madrassa culture which collectively dreams of a destabilised, if not balkanised, India. If Pak-inspired terrorism in India were to come to an end where would all these jehadis be sent? To the rest of India, perhaps? Or to Afghanistan, Central Asia or even further into Europe? Keeping them in Pakistan would be suicidal for the Pakistani establishment. Islamic radicals and terrorists may not have yet developed a replica of the Comintern but they do seem to have a Jehad’s Rapid Deployment Force as a counter to Centcom.
In her book, ‘Modern Jihad-Tracing the dollars behind the Terror Networks’, Loretta Napoleoni says the ‘terror industry’ is worth US$ 1.5 trillion. Linked to this are various other multi-billion dollar ‘service industries’ like heroin dealings and warlords, human trafficking and recruiters, black financiers and arms smuggling and dealers. All have a stake in this lucrative business and vested interests in its continuance.
Terrorism of any kind, especially that sponsored as state policy, is a never-ending war. It will never disappear completely and it will be difficult to determine that the war has been won. Whenever claims are made that the situation is under control, terrorists leave behind a violent visiting card. Given the extent and nature of terrorism, the war on terror is a marathon race sometimes run at a sprint and sometimes on a treadmill. It needs collective political will to stay the course beyond the next election, courage and skill of the security forces, and above all, accurate and timely intelligence. This has to be not just pre-emptive intelligence about camps, training, weapons and strikes but one of the most crucial aspects that sustains terrorism. This relates to strategic intelligence about the financing of terrorism, increasingly the most intricate and the most difficult part of intelligence collection.
Source : The Hindstan Times, November 23, 2005
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