The War on Terrorism - the unwinnable war against a Noun
The War on Terrorism is a stupid term because terrorism is a method of warfare. US President George W Bush may have trouble understanding this, but you cannot fight a war against a noun. During the 1939-45 war Hitler called Dutch partisans terrorists. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. So let us be clear. Terrorism is at some times in our history is seen as not only a legitimate response but as justiable. This war, despite the bluster of the Bush administration, is not a war on terrorism. It is a war against militant Islam.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has recently said that the war on terrorism has no link to poverty, claiming instead it is a clash of values. Conservatives like Mr Downer are simply putting their own political spin on the war. These are the same people who cannot see the link between Aboriginal's dispossession and the social problems they face today. The people who cannot understand why refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan refused asylum would riot. And finally the people who think that participating in the invasion of Iraq would not increase the terrorist risk to Australia, that in fact it would somehow decrease it. These are people without empathy, only an arrogant belief in their own superiority and that of their values. It is easy to see how Mr Downer cannot and will not see a link between terrorism and poverty. He couldn't see the wood for the trees he is so ideologically blind.
Terrorism may have wealthy financiers, particularly in Saudi Arabia, but its support base is drawn entirely from uneducated, poor and aggrieved peoples of the Middle East. To dismiss the Israel and Palestine conflict and obvious American bias is at best naive and at worst plain dishonest. Likewise Western interference in Middle Eastern countries, with demands that they conform to our way of life, our form of democracy and our capitalist system, is causing great resentment and tension. The double standards of the US, advocating laissez-faire capitalism for Third World countries whilst refusing to expose its own economy to the pressures of full competition is an obvious source of resentment. Launching a war on Iraq supposedly because of its weapons and human rights abuses, while ignoring human rights abuses in other undemocratic countries is frankly suspicious. The actions of the US in the past supporting regimes like that of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan do not lend credability to its supposedly high moral aims. Until these and other issues are addressed extremist terrorist groups will continue to have a ready support base for recruits. The only way to address terrorism effectively is therefore to undermine this popular support base by helping redress the problems facing the Muslim world, particularly those caused or exacerbated by the West. It may well be that it is impossible to negotiate with some terrorist extremists. But without the ready and willing support base who finance them and give them popular support, such extremists would be isolated and vastly less effective. It stands to reason. Take away the cause of the terrorists - that is, the legitimate causes - and they will lose popular support. Why would a Palestinian who has lost his home because of Israeli policy not want to become a suicide bomber? What else does he or she have to live for? Stop giving the terrorists reason to hate us, and we might have a chance of ending the violence. But simply mouthing rhetoric about terrorists being threatened by our freedom and advocating military solutions to this complex problem is a recipe for endless war and disaster for the human race.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has recently said that the war on terrorism has no link to poverty, claiming instead it is a clash of values. Conservatives like Mr Downer are simply putting their own political spin on the war. These are the same people who cannot see the link between Aboriginal's dispossession and the social problems they face today. The people who cannot understand why refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan refused asylum would riot. And finally the people who think that participating in the invasion of Iraq would not increase the terrorist risk to Australia, that in fact it would somehow decrease it. These are people without empathy, only an arrogant belief in their own superiority and that of their values. It is easy to see how Mr Downer cannot and will not see a link between terrorism and poverty. He couldn't see the wood for the trees he is so ideologically blind.
Terrorism may have wealthy financiers, particularly in Saudi Arabia, but its support base is drawn entirely from uneducated, poor and aggrieved peoples of the Middle East. To dismiss the Israel and Palestine conflict and obvious American bias is at best naive and at worst plain dishonest. Likewise Western interference in Middle Eastern countries, with demands that they conform to our way of life, our form of democracy and our capitalist system, is causing great resentment and tension. The double standards of the US, advocating laissez-faire capitalism for Third World countries whilst refusing to expose its own economy to the pressures of full competition is an obvious source of resentment. Launching a war on Iraq supposedly because of its weapons and human rights abuses, while ignoring human rights abuses in other undemocratic countries is frankly suspicious. The actions of the US in the past supporting regimes like that of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan do not lend credability to its supposedly high moral aims. Until these and other issues are addressed extremist terrorist groups will continue to have a ready support base for recruits. The only way to address terrorism effectively is therefore to undermine this popular support base by helping redress the problems facing the Muslim world, particularly those caused or exacerbated by the West. It may well be that it is impossible to negotiate with some terrorist extremists. But without the ready and willing support base who finance them and give them popular support, such extremists would be isolated and vastly less effective. It stands to reason. Take away the cause of the terrorists - that is, the legitimate causes - and they will lose popular support. Why would a Palestinian who has lost his home because of Israeli policy not want to become a suicide bomber? What else does he or she have to live for? Stop giving the terrorists reason to hate us, and we might have a chance of ending the violence. But simply mouthing rhetoric about terrorists being threatened by our freedom and advocating military solutions to this complex problem is a recipe for endless war and disaster for the human race.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home