From Riyadh to Karachi to Casablanca to Beirut... Terrorism in the Islamic World Exponentiating in the Wake of the Iraq War
THIS WEEK alone, major terrorist incidents have erupted prodigiously across the Middle East and its environs, causing a rapid reassessment of Western, especially American, involvement in the "war on terrorism" and whether purported successes were merely ploys exploited for political advantage while threats to stability continued unabated. Certainly, as Democratic presidential candidates in the United States now claim, the war against Iraq stripped away vital resources needed for threat detection and counterterrorist infiltration- not to mention shattering the last vestiges of goodwill much of the world displayed toward the United States in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September attacks. Nevertheless, the Iraq war had a more devastating effect, in radicalising a much greater segment of the Arab and Islamic worlds than ever before, and making manifest what had hiterto been partially baseless propaganda about American imperial designs on the Mideast. A revived al-Qaeda, evidently, as that organisation's hallmark traces lie all over the recent attacks in Riyadh and Casablanca, is again stalking the globe, hitting whatever targets present themselves in the absence of strictest security.
In Morocco, security is notably lax, given the country's lack of experience with the type of Islamic extremism boiling further to the east. Various institutions representing the United States, however, such as its embassy in Rabat or consulate in Casablanca, are considerably protected. In Saudi Arabia, US military installations, due for a substantial withdrawl but nevertheless still operational, are well-guarded. Therefore, in each country, is was simply easier to strike civilian targets. Both governments attempt to pose as US allies, although Morocco, notably, criticised the Iraq war. Nevertheless, the strike on Casablanca proves not only that collusion between Islamic states and the US is unacceptable to al-Qaeda, but that it has the ability to strike on a broad spectrum of geographical targets. It is unlikely the attackers were themselves Moroccans- Rabat has been tracking Saudis within Morocco for years whom they have suspected attempting to form a Qaeda cell- and therefore such can only be an example of al-Qaeda's projection capabilities. In Indonesia and the Philippines, proxy or sympathiser groups act on its behalf. Being able to hit targets from one end of the Eastern Hemisphere from another instills as much fear in one's enemies as the United States' capacity to send F-117 stealth aircraft from the continental US to strike targets in Europe, as it had during the Balkan affairs of the 1990s.
The targets themselves seemed to have a tenuous theme, primarily of anti-Western sentiment. The three primary objectives for the terrorists were a hotel containing a considerable number of Jews, a Spanish restaurant, potentially also popular with a Jewish crowd, and the Belgian consulate, which may seem illogical until one realises that the consulate was severely damaged by an attack meant to be carried out against an Italian restaurant catering to Jews. The Italian consulate, too, was slightly damaged, being in close proximity to Belgium's. That Spain and Italy were allies with the US in its assault on Iraq is probably irrelevant- their restaurants were targeted for their Jewish affiliation, otherwise the attackers would have been far more likely to engage American or British tourists. Ergo, the attacks seemed to indicate more protest of Jewish influence, though the fact they were carried out against two foreign restaurants and a modern hotel indicates they had the earmarks of anti-cosmopolitanism as well. The different means used to coordinate the attacks (by car as well as suicide bomb) indicate a variety of groups may be involved, from Palestine and Algeria one would logically guess, considering the targets and geographical siting of Morocco, but al-Qaeda's ability to infiltrate and penetrate globally certainly makes it the primary suspect in the incident. That Morocco has a relatively Westernised economic base, and has even (at one point) petitioned for EU membership, has probably played a role in al-Qaeda's targeting of a state not sufficiently independent of Western influence. That an e-mail circulated by an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj, released following the Riyadh attacks, stipulated that the organisation's new targets would be "the heart of America, the Gulf countries and allies of the United States, particularly Egypt and Jordan." Presumably, Morocco can also be listed as a US ally, however tacitly it articulated its support. Most telling, perhaps, was his indication that "the world will see how we make America pay the price for invading Iraq."
Activity has not been limited exclusively to the Riyadh and Casablanca incidents, though these have gotten considerably the most attention. In Karachi, twenty-one petroleum stations were attacked, all affiliated with British or American oil companies, a clear indication of displeasure with Anglo-American influence in Iraq, over the government of Pakistan, and in neighbouring Afghanistan. In Lebanon, officials assert nine individuals were arrested after plotting attacks against the US embassy in Beirut. Attacks in such rapid, coordinated succession have been effective in stunning the world back into paranoia over Islamic fundamentalism. The disturbing headlines emerging from the efforts to reconstruct Iraq, meanwhile, are relegated to back pages. That Iraq has assumed a centrality in the politics of the Mideast rivalling that of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is essential to understanding the nature of this new terrorist offencive. The United States has become an occupying power far greater than Israel in scope and brutality. Israel is despised at incredulous levels in the Mideast after its activities in the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973- none of which involved an Israeli assault on civilian targets within Arab capitals the level at which the US executed the clusterbombardment of Baghdad. A Newtonian response mechanism has hence welled up in the Islamic world to meet the nature of the threat posed to independence. The global reach of the United States has provoked the organisation of a society devoted to an assault, worldwide, on its interests when conflicting with the goal of Islamic fundamentalism, or, at least, departure from suppliance toward Washington. What Israel fomented in the form of small-scale suicide bomb attacks by Palestinian radicals has multiplied into an ideological movement manifested by a group with worldwide strike capacity, in order to resist the macro-imperialism of the American hegemon.
The response of the West to such a novel instrument of global instability must be twofold- first, engaging in an effective security apparatus, and, second, ensuring the conditions which have produced such violent fringe elements of society- and which continue to catalyse such a movement- are not allowed to arise again. To do so requires an abject acknowledgement of past failures, most notably the type of heavy-handed occupational philosophy which has been instrumental in birthing terrorist movement. The stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia led to the formation of al-Qaeda, which opposed such an American interlocution on the soil of "the guardians of the holiest sites in Islam." They were subsequently sheltered by the Taliban, a group which emerged from a cabal of religious extremists among the mujahideen militia groups opposing the Russian puppet government ruling Kabul prior to 1979 and the subsequent Russian invasion (and there is no need to mention that both the pre-Taliban mujahideen and the forerunners of al-Qaeda were financed by the US in order to prevent the Soviet Union from maintaining its influence over Afghanistan...) The situations in the Palestinian territories and Chechnya are essentially similar as well. In order to bring about an effective halt to the zeal for such violent extremist groups, not only must the Israel-Palestine situation be solved or show substantial progress toward some resolution, but the occupation of Iraq by American (or American-chosen) forces must immediately end, a face-saving Chechen peace accord must be reached, Afghanistan must be both functional and independent, and Pakistan must seem to be less an adjunct of US demands- lest the unthinkable, that a revolution occurs and its primarily hardline Islamist population obtains the stewardship of its nuclear weaponry. In each situation, the UN and regional powers, like Iran and Egypt, must take a leading role, rather than the United States, in order to stifle the developed suspicion and demonstrably rational fears of the US compromising constructive initiatives in the region currently.
In providing for an effective security apparatus, the United States must recognise the limitations placed upon not only governments in the Islamic world, but in Europe as well. In his Foreign Affairs article, Jonathan Stevenson argues that the United States and Europe take fundamentally different approaches to counterterrorism operations, and that Europe's security measures need to be far more comprehensive in order to provide effective protection for the United States. Of course, Stevenson, in his triumphalism of the draconian dictations of American "Homeland Security" chief Tom Ridge, huffs that Europe, "unfortunately," has less of a disposition toward losing its civil liberties, and that it engages in threat, rather than vulnerability-based assessment of impending danger. What this last sentiment truly indicates is that Europe is more concerned with engaging actual, specific threats through a vastly superior system of intelligence gathering rather than take such unnecessary measures as panic-inducing and economically volatile security alerts, police-state measures at airports, and "pre-emptive" strikes on weak, vulnerable "rogue states" which just may, someday in the future, manufacture weapons capable of defending against such strikes.
The primary failure of Stevenson's analysis of the different perceptions of security within the transatlantic community is the failure to recognise that the US is intrinsically more vulnerable due to its command-control policy toward the Mideast- of course, as American neoconservatives like to argue, such policy is "necessary" what with the "weakness" of Europe to defend against "threats"- as if threats to Europe really exist. Ironically, Stevenson also claims European security systems cannot be effective without a more tightly integrated EU, though the US embarked on a course to, essentially, divide and conquer Europe during the Iraq crisis. At the same time the US seeks to split Europe and manipulate its weaknesses to preserve its own global hegemony, it loses an element of its own national security. Finally, Stevenson argues, those who claim Europe needs to be courted as an effective ally in the terror war fail to see that the terrorist threats Europe has engaged formerly have all been rather isolated and connected with political movements, rather, he asserts, than al-Qaeda, a truly ingenuous conception of terrorism. Nevertheless, Europe's security forces, counterinsurgency experience, and intelligence apparati seem to have been achieving a far more effective assault on al-Qaeda cells within Europe than the United States' policies have been in pursuing it in the Mideast. Furthermore, recognising the political element of al-Qaeda is to recognise regional realities which lead to its increasing power, like the chronic poverty afflicting Saudi Arabia. The European approach, with its recognition of such political elements, can be extremely useful in solving what are now fringe conflicts in the Mideast as well- as in the Palestinian Territories and Chechnya.
The failures of the American approach are summarised quite succinctly in Paul Krugman's New York Times column "Paths of Glory," in which he refutes ludicrous assumptions (radiating from the American propaganda organs) that the Bush administration has pursued an effective assault on al-Qaeda. In the most telling segment, he reflects on how television has manipulated Americans into believing in the success of Bush's initiatives:
The administration's antiterror campaign makes me think of the way television studios really look. The fancy set usually sits in the middle of a shabby room, full of cardboard and duct tape. Networks take great care with what viewers see on their TV screens; they spend as little as possible on anything off camera. And so it has been with the campaign against terrorism. Mr. Bush strikes heroic poses on TV, but his administration neglects anything that isn't photogenic.
Ergo the parades in Mazar-e-Sharif when entered by the forces of the Northern Alliance during the Afghan war, but the relegation to the tickers on the bottoms of the cable news networks' screens the despatches from Afghanistan's hinterlands of renewed warlord violence or increased Taliban activity. The (some say staged) made-for-television moment when a handful of Iraqis pulled down the large statue of Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad was played up significantly on television, but Fox News and others fail to carry the less seemly images of the occupation. Why is CNN, for example, not reporting on the nefarious machinations surrounding water rights in the Mideast following Iraq's conquest?
So it is with terror. The attacks on Riyadh and Casablanca were opportunities for President Bush to make grandiloquent speeches (well, as grandiloquent as possible for the US' most prosaic president since Calvin Coolidge) condemning al-Qaeda and vowing to continue the "war on terror" which has become as cyclical and ludicrous as the "war on drugs." That such attacks are excuses for the imposition of more martial excess and fearmongering rhetoric by the Bush administration indicates the circularly prophetic nature of information flow in the United States- these attacks, clear indications of the failure of the anti-Qaeda campaign, are reconstrued as justifications for the continuation of military activities enraging the Islamic world, and encouraging more attacks. The cycle merely deposits higher and higher approval ratings for the administration, and the manipulation of an ignorance of even recent history (doesn't the failure to locate WMDs in Iraq count for something?) ensures that the systemic extermination of Muslim civilians by either al-Qaeda attack or American clusterbomb continues indefinitely.
The Convention Connection A Europe of the People is a United Europe
THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION is meant to create a constitutional basis for the European Union and to tie it ever closer to its people. Nevertheless, its proceedings have emerged as a more arcane debate over the structures of the EU's various branches of government. The primary struggle has been between large and small states within the Union. The large states which have sought to operate beyond the Elysée Treaty consensus of Germany and France, the "European Core," which have consistently driven the Union toward deeper phases of political and economic integration. Ergo, their prerogative has always been to preserve their most essential component of independence- foreign policy. The large states wish to see the role of European chief executive as well as European "external representative" (as the Europhobes in the UK like to refer to the position of an EU foreign minister) as functions of the composition of the European Council, the body of EU government composed of committees from the national governments of member states. This would allow the nation-states to hold the most considerable sway within the EU government, as opposed to the popularly elected Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the European Commission "Eurocrats."
The Commission is a body represented less by populational proportion, and influenced less by decisions emanating from national capitals, as the Council. As such, the smaller European states, even those sceptical of deeper integration, oppose the efforts of the larger "sovereignist" states to build a Europe predicated on the Council's decisions. Recently, sixteen European states, ten of which are incoming Central and Eastern European states, submitted a document to the Convention Chairman, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in opposition to the maneouvres of Britain and Spain, the primary proponents of the Council plan. The only exception among the inbound members was Poland, which, like Spain, seems prepared to pursue a vigourously centrifugal agenda vis-a-vis centralised European foreign policy. Within the current membership bloc, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Portgual, Austria, and Ireland signed the document, a reflection of their relatively small populations. France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg, which notably asserted the right to integrational flexibility during their summit on European defence last month, remain committed to a bizarrely convoluted and esoteric compromise, also supported by M. d'Estaing, granting each the Council and Commission specific and limited powers. Such a compromise would inevitably bring the EU into situations similar to its crisis today, in which one bloc of states is pursuing a vastly different agenda than others. What's more, many in the current EU "fifteen" fear a logjam of discussion if every EU state, post-expansion, is represented within the Commission. The Netherlands, for this reason, joined Belgium and Luxembourg in proposing a 15-nation rotating membership for the Commission.
This, however, would not bring the stability to the Union which the Commission needs to supply as the de facto executive committee of the European project. The forces exist within the Union to create both a Commission and Parliament of significantly expanding powers at the expense of a Council which is composed primarily of national bureaucrats contesting issues for their own national gain and their own expanded personal political prestige. While the national element remains important within the EU, it should not be enshrined in such an institution as the Council, which elevates states to the supreme position of sovereignty at the expense of the other, more democratically representative bodies of the EU. It is precisely the Council and its ability to grant the centrifugal states their independence of foreign policy action which is cementingthe schism of Europe as unveiled by the Iraq situation- and manipulated by the United States.
Instead of attempting to curry a compromise between the two competing blocs, the "European Core" states should instead place their emphasis on supporting the small states and their quest for a Europe governed primarily by the Commission. Without their ability to project individual influence, the large, centrifugal nation-states are tied to a Europe in which they are the substantial minority- as well as subjected to both an executive and Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) representative disconnected from the national influences of a Council-controlled European entity. The Commission could easily avoid the feared logjams if clearly delineated time periods are given for debate and if the Commission was directed by a strong executive. Not only could such an arrangement produce a European executive appointed from among the Commission who could presumably overrule the decisions of the centrifugal states, but the "European Core" states could endeavour to subvert the objectives of such states by proposing such an executive be elected by and from among the people.
Reaffirming the Convention's democratic purpose is a key means by which Europe can be strengthened. The "spirit of Europe," as exhibited prior to and during the Iraq situation, is at once strong and unified, though defied by the petty power scrambles among European leaders. Anti-French insults resonated across the English channel while the majority of the population of the UK, prior to the war, gave higher approval ratings to French President Jacques Chirac. While the Prime Ministers of Spain and Portgual entertained Bush in the Azores, the streets of Iberia erupted in protest. Every balcony in Italy had a rainbow banner reading, simply, Pace, although the country's corrupt, proto-fascist Prime Minister theoretically has control of the vast majority of the Italian media. In France and Germany, opinion of the respective governments soared. Even in Poland, at one point, antiwar sentiment ran at 97% (Newsweek statistic.) The centrifugal sentiment is a minuscule minority, but a powerful one. Ironically, however, their primary concerns about a Europe of broadened and deepened integration, that Europe has grown disparate from its citizens, has served to strengthen their own standing. The self-fulfilling prophecy of the Eurosceptics continues to subvert the fusion of the European state and the European spirit.
The "European Core" states, therefore, should both insist on a European Commission president elected directly by the citizens of the EU, and a broad expansions of the powers of the European Parliament, now cut out of many vital decision-making processes left to the omnipresent Council. The small European states have insisted upon the maintenance of the rotating presidency, but they may be willing to compromise for Core support on the problematic Commission issue. Not to mention, both Germany and France can use such as an opportunity to prove to smaller Central and Eastern European states that they are looking out for such states' interests and not looking to exert political or economic domination. The public presentation of initiatives for a more democratic Europe should galvanise public support and put pressure on both the representatives within the Convention and the Eurosceptic, centrifugal states.
The thorny problem, one may insist, is of the governments of the centrifugal states, seemingly defeated or left out in the cold. They may still seek to obstruct or obfuscate such a process. As I wrote earlier, the prerogative of such "New Europe" states is the apprehension of more power, both to act as equals to the Core states within the EU and to become world powers in their own right. This is true especially of Spain and Poland- for Britain, it is a question of maintaining a somewhat imperial policy through the proxy of the United States. Even Romania sought to claim its global role recently by making the highly dubious claim it halted terrorist activity coordinated by the Iraqi embassy in Bucharest. Tied to a more centralised, more democratic, and more effective European entity, such states would be forced to seek power by other means than playing European pawns for Washington's interests- they would have to support an expanded European Union on the world stage. Within such a tightly-bound Europe, such is the means by which the power and influence so sought by Spain, Poland, et al can be increased. Poland will probably find it more to its advantage to have safe access to EU investment havens in Africa and the Mideast than to be the subject of suicide bombings as proxy occupation agents in US colonial outposts anyway.
If a united Europe is to fuse with democracy, promote its weltenshauung abroad, ensure the rising prominence of its member states via a government in which they are fully represented (rather than an imperial power they attach themselves to like barnacles), this is the route the Convention must take. The world cannot afford a passive and divided European continent while the American hegemon dances its imperial swagger across the Islamic world and beyond- nor do the citizens of Europe deserve governments that would rather exploit attachments to neoimperialism for individual gain or blind nationalism while the masses stand united in their demands for unity and peace. These governments should not be influenced by the hijacked and loaded term "Atlanticism." The Atlantic relationship throughout the Cold War respected partnership- either because the United States intelligently observed that this was the means by which it could retain the commitment of Western Europe to its anticommunist cause or because the United States and Western Europe merely shared a common enemy. In any case, with the finale of the Cold War and the rise of the European Union, relations within the Union have become strained over the nature of such an Atlantic partnership, primarily because the United States has taken a worldview which dictates to, rather than consults, its former vital allies. The nature of "Atlanticism" today is to comply with the impliable decisions of Washington or be relegated to a role on the sidelines of international action- of "isolation," as critics within Germany and France contend. The United States believes its unchallenged military power gives it not only the means, but the right to execute its missionary crusade on the trajectory which has always been partially obstructed by the geopolitical reality of power-balancing. It has gotten to the point at which former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pens an article in Le Mondeurging Europeans, for the sake of the "transatlantic bond," to grant the United States a permanent observer status not only within the European Convention, but within its future councils of government as well. Could one even imagine Washington's response should the EU ask if members of the European Commission could sit in on meetings of, say, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? Or the cabinet meetings of the Bush White House? Is it not blatantly obvious that "Atlanticism" has come to mean subordination and masochism?
To be sure, a government founded upon the essential sentiment of the citizens of Europe would never allow such a hyprocritical injustice, but if one takes the pages of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as any indication, any step taken against Washington (or, for that matter, the US' "one-size-fits-all" approach to global economics) is a step toward Europe's ruin. It is under this pressure that Germany has begun to gravitate back toward the US to some degree, essentially agreeing to vote along with the US on a UN resolution granting what has been construed as a legitimation of the occupation of Iraq by US-UK forces and, therefore, the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. Russia, however, still opposes such a measure, and France has reneged to a degree on its original pledges to end the sanctions, as they have, internationally, become acknowledged as merely a post facto means by which the Anglo-American imperialists can justify their slaughter of Iraqi civilians and seizure of Iraqi oil supplies. Europe, split so chronically and under such pressure to conform to the irrational conservative desire for the maintained status of the Atlantic Alliance, at any cost to European sovereignty, is unable to seek even compliance with the declaration it made at Athens to grant the UN a "central role" in Iraqi reconstruction- a principle to which even the government of Tony Blair then adhered. Fortunately, signs indicate the Schroeder government in Germany isn't willing to immediately capitualate to US expansionism, but to truly bring the American war machine to a grinding halt, to achieve the critical balance so necessary in the achievement of global stability and the effectiveness of international institutions, the Convention, via the aforementioned strategies, needs to authorise a Europe prepared to tackle the responsibilities of a true Atlantic partner- one which knows when and how to deny its superpower ally.
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Notes on the Global Condition-
-US DEFENCE SECRETARY Donald Rumsfeld, possibly the most hated man on earth, recently proposed to "cut the red tape" of defence appropriations. "Rumsfeld submitted a proposal to Congress on April 11 that would scrap virtually every reporting requirement intended to let lawmakers oversee major defense spending programs." The US Defence Department is now utilising the same arguments against the American pillars of democracy that it had against the United Nations- that legislative debate is inefficient and, in fact, detrimental to the ability of the United States to rapidly carry out vital military operations. Perhaps, with Congress itself threatened, more Americans will be willing to speak out against this dangerous ascent of martial influence on the policies of the US government. As Cicero said, Silent leges inter arma ("Silent are the laws among arms.")
-JAPAN passed legislation to strengthen its military might, affirming the fears of China and the rest of the region that Japanese militarism may be awakened in the face of the North Korean threat. The situation is developing gradually, however, and there is still no indication of the direction Japan may go, considering the volatile balance and intermittant nature of talks between the DPRK and the United States.
Backlash The Worldwide Terrorist Response to Repression
THE BOMBINGS in Riyadh this week were the tip of the iceberg for global terrorist activity. The Sydney Morning Heraldreports that the US is warning of a "new terrorist onslaught." Further bombings are possible in Saudi Arabia, and Australians are being warned to stay out of Indonesia on any "nonessential business." Australia, of course, has felt itself in a vulnerable position since the Bali bombings and its involvement in the invasion and conquest of Iraq. Meanwhile, Russia is reeling from two suicide bombing incidents in Chechnya, which President Vladimir Putin claims are linked to the Saudi attacks.
The incidents in Riyadh were inevitable given current US policy in the region. The idea that terrorism is some coherent objective which can be singled out for destruction has seemingly been guiding the direction of American action in the Mideast. George W. Bush, making pathetic attempts to obscure the obvious failure of his fallacious economic policies with bombastic warrior-rhetoric, said in Indianapolis that the Riyadh attackers' "only religion is hate." It was an obfuscation which played well in Indiana, a traditional hotbed of rabid allegiance to the Republican Party line. Unfortunately, due such a blindfold of zombie-like jingoism, Bush won't lose as many votes as he will percentage points on any American employment index. In what must be some bizarre feat of mental gymnastics, the citizens of the United States conclude not only that the same failed supply-side economic policy will produce jobs this time around, but that the same application of martial excess is what is needed in order to prevent such activities as the Riyadh bombings- though their continuing occurrence seems proof that a terrorist backlash has been catalysed, and not prevented, by such military solutions.
Indeed, the milieu in the Mideast continues to worsen for its citizens as a direct consequence of American activity. Afghanistan has disintegrated into a measley patchwork of warlord-controlled territories and uplands where the Taliban has been regrouping. American soldiers there report they feel "almost forgotten" by Washington, while Afghans joke that the pinnacle of the nation's "reconstruction," the Kabul- Kandahar- Mazar-e-Sharif highway, has taken longer to reconstruct, and is in worse condition, than the original route, dating to the 1920s. Indeed, massive protests in Kabul erupted recently challenging Washington's seemingly forgotten promises to create a model society in Afghanistan or even merely to rebuild it. It should come as no surprise that the reason the Taliban has gained such renewed success is its erstwhile capacity to introduce some element of order- and as an indication of a fallout of relations between the United States and the Afghan people. Iran's purported attempt to begin a nuclear weapons programme is an immediate response to clear indications the US intends to perform "regime change" operations on any "rogue state" which dares oppose its hegemonistic sway. US "allies" in Central Asia, like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, only manage to suppress militant Islamism with the repression of popular sentiment by autocratic decree. Turkmenistan in particular is ruled by a narcissistic despot whose cult-of-personality iconography puts the imagery of Ba'athist totalitarianism in Iraq to shame. Pakistan's military government (lest we forget "President" Musharraf is really General Musharraf, having seized power in a coup) relies on similar subjugation of Islamist sentiment, which is quite possibly the world's most fervent, especially in the lawless hinterlands of the Afghan border. Islamabad's recent dissociation with fundamentalist guerilla groups operating in Kashmir may have given impetus to a rapprochement between South Asia's two volatilely-balanced nuclear powers, but has further eroded support for Musharraf's regime and furthered antigovernment Islamist sentiment.
Nowehere could be worse than Iraq, where the power of Shi'ite clerics continues to grow considerably. The new policy of the latest American proconsul, Paul Bremer, intended to instill a sense of "law and order" in the colony, is to shoot looters on sight. Surely such a practise would instill fear, but it seems to have less to do with a due process of law and order and more with the type of insensitive imperialist bravado as demonstrated by the British and the Amritsar Massacre, or perhaps that same empire's strafing of restive insurgent elements in 1920s Iraq by biplane. Of course, one could argue, the need for the imposition of order is so great as to ignore the niceties of anti-brutality statutes for police activities. Nevertheless, such a callous order is bound to provoke a response among Iraqis already furious over the mere presence of American forces on their soil. The paradox of imperialism is hence underscored- lax application of order results in chaos, the actions needed to restrain such chaos lead inevitably to uprising. That the United States has acted with such surprise at what were obviously impending developments is an indication it has lost grasp of its own imperial history and its consequences- the bloody Filipino insurrection, the Cuban revolution against American puppet Fulgencio Batista.
Russian activity in the region has also caused significant unrest. Chechen revolutionaries, dismissed now in the West as in Russia as "terrorist bandits" (in gross ignorance of Russia's ludicrously harsh treatment of the autonomous republic) have had nowhere else to look but the Mideast. Traditionally the Chechens have sought support from relatively moderate Islamic states like Turkey and Egypt, but their continued allegiance to the United States in its "war on terror" has forced the beleaguered and forgotten Chechan resistance to seek out assistance from such rekown terrorist organisations as al-Qaeda, alleged to be behind the Riyadh bombings and, according to Russian President Putin, involved in the recent Chechnya assaults as well. Though this may in fact be true (and the indications are that it is likely) the exclusion of any independent journalists from Chechnya have made any official Russian reports impossible to verify. Putin, of course, gains considerably from linking Chechen terrorist activity to al-Qaeda, by continuing to enlist tacit US (and, to some extent, European) support in the savage Russian activity taking place there, and by building a degree of sustained credibility in Washington, with which he had a fallout over Iraq, as a continuing "war on terror" ally. The Russian imperative in Chechnya, of course, is to crush the rebellion in order to gain political currency from the nationalist Russian population and to appease the ex-KGB hardliners in the Kremlin arguing for the need to preserve Russian "integrity."
Ultimately, the Russians would indeed like to participate in a multipolar atmosphere, and for this, the Kremlin believes, its military credibility must be sustained by containing such outbreaks of separatist sentiment as that occurring in Chechnya. Of course, this is anathema to the intrinsically pacifist Europeans, disgusted by the Chechen situation, and preventing Europe from conjoining itself more closely with the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, both "Old Europe" and Russia seem to share the counterpolar philosophy, and each should target specific objectives to bring about a more healthy and intimate relationship. In return for closer economic and military support and ties with Europe, the EU could pressure Russia to grant Chechnya its independence. While ostensibly this might bring about the revulsion of the nationalist community in Russia, or a national disillusionment on the scale of the (1979-1986) Afghanistan war's aftermath, in the long term Russia's national prestige may increase as global prominence improves due to a counterpolar alliance with Europe and a significantly expanded economy.
As per Saudi Arabia, its close ties with the United States had been a rallying point for years for al-Qaeda or similar organisations opposing the House of Saud's control. The purported link between al-Qaeda and the 11 September attacks on the United States was a video featuring Osama bin Laden condemning the presence of American military personnel on Saudi soil. Though the US is now decamping its military assets from Saudi Arabia in favour of the less risk-prone localities of Qatar and Kuwait (not to mention Iraq), the careful manoeuvre of the US and Saudi Arabia to make it seem the Kingdom had requested the departure of American forces evidently backfired, as it created the impression the American troop presence had always been at the behest of the Kingdom rather than an unwelcome presence imposed on the militarily weak Saudi state. Indeed, this action, and the announcement by the Saudi Foreign Minister that its cooperation with the United States concerning terrorist activity would be more open in the future, are indications of the continuing, or even increasing adhesion of the House of Saud to Washington, and therefore formulating opposition among an increasingly restive and pro-Qaeda Saudi populace. Saudi Arabia has always attempted to maintain a precarious balance between the conservative elements of Islamist persuasions and sympathies, which assert that state's special obligations due to its possession of Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and its necessary ties with the West, in particular the United States, which provides it outside security and a crucial market for its petroleum exports- the black gold on which the fortunes of the royal house rest. This accounts for the bizarre juxtaposition between the Kingdom's sponsorship of the teachings of Wahabbi Islam in its schools and the violent advocation of its overthrow by the agents of al-Qaeda and like-minded organisations. More and more, the Kingdom's attempts to appeal to a (slightly) more moderate element of fundamentalist Islam seem to be earning it both the antipathy of the United States and its own increasingly extremist population.
Islamic fundamentalist sentiment is a compendium of many influences over a broad spectrum of societies, but eventually it boils down to more than simply a "religion of hate." It is a struggle for freedom, the same which the United States believes it is bringing about in such places as Iraq or Afghanistan. The irony is that such a struggle is one not merely against such regimes as those in Pakistan, Turkmenistan, or Saudi Arabia, but against foreign domination as well. Arabs reported feeling humiliation, not joy, at the sight of US troops entering Baghdad. The attacks in Riyadh were coordinated against Western compounds which provide personnel support for the infrastructure of the Saudi regime. This freedom fight is not against Western culture- only the most extremist of Islamic fundamentalists (and the most delusional) advocate a total destruction of the West or even Israel, though such feelings have been played up significantly in the US, Israel, Europe, and Russia in order to enlist support in the "war on terror." In actuality, the fundamentalists wish for cultural and political independence, and seek it through an ideology growing in attractiveness for its homespun qualities, as opposed to the Western-style nationalism exhibited by Nasser and Saddam. It will continue to grow in support as Russia and the United States pursue policies similar to Israel's in exercise of reflexive and reciprocal violence- and the resistance will continue at such basic levels as children throwing rocks at tanks, if this is the only means available.
Of course, one should not glorify terrorist activity as "anti-imperial resistance." Attacks upon civilians are reprehensible. Nevertheless, the seething rage at what are increasingly seen as anti-Islamic pursuits of the Russian, American, and, of course, Israeli militaries will manifest themselves by any means possible. With American troops withdrawing from Saudi soil and the massively improved security of American bases in Saudi Arabia, the next logical targets for suicide bombers were the "support elements" of the Saudi-Western axis in the more accessible compounds. Such attacks on civilians do, in fact, have moral equivalency in the eyes of their sponsors, in that American, Russian, and Israeli tactics often result in the deaths of an equally great number of innocents. Who can forget Ariel Sharon's butchery of Palestinians on the outskirts of Beirut, or, for that matter, the recent cluster-bombing of Baghdad (and the aforementioned shoot on sight policies envisioned by Proconsul Bremer). What has occurred in terms of civilian casualties and human rights in Chechnya is too horrifying to describe. Given the support among Russians, Israelis, and Americans for their respective actions, it is also hard for the Islamist insurgents to follow the logic that civilians are not involved in the repression of their culture, religion, and independence. After all, such activities correspond to the American and Israeli obsession with security, the American impulse of Manifest Destiny, and the Russian nationalist gestalt. All three repressive states are democracies, though, as a consequence of their increasingly martial atmospheres, liberties have been degraded in each.
The recognition that the atmosphere in the Mideast much change in order to significantly eradicate terrorism is now at hand- but the methodology used for such reform (American colonialism) has clearly brought both more instability and less likelihood of achieving the common objective of security. The most zealously idealistic neoconservative recognises that terrorism is not a concrete target which can be demolished in a fell swoop of military action, but a desperate method utilised by those seeking to fulfill an ideological commitment fomented by a combination of unsatisfactory levels of independence, economic prosperity, and social harmony. True reform therefore cannot come about as a result of military action such as that in Iraq or Afghanistan, as it degrades one's sense of independence. Even if such is followed by rapid disengagement militarily and allowance of an indigenous government, the resultant and inevitable chaos (as evidenced by Afghanistan) ensures a loss of potential for economic growth as well as the inability to preserve stability and thus social harmony. In Palestine, all three factors are clearly lacking; Palestinians live in a tentative climate of refugee camps, are overpowered by the incessant Israeli occupation, and the resultant instability wreaks havoc on economic progress.
Continuing to view the plague of terrorism as a type of contemporary barbarism against "civilisation" is to provoke an infinite spiral of death and destruction. As William Butler Yeats wrote, ever poignantly, in his "Second Coming":
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
~
Notes on the Global Condition-
-CHINA AND JAPAN have been engaged in productive discussions on common military policy intended to stabilise the region and contain the threat of a North Korean nuclear attack, according to to the Asia Times. The Chinese realise that the introduction of more North Korean intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBCs), which have a range stretching as far as Taiwan, might provoke (as indications continue to stream from Tokyo) a Japanese nuclear programme, which could be completed in mere months, covering the same range, and hence preventing any Chinese "military option" for reunity with T'aipei. China is also concerned with potential Japanese participation in a joint missile defence programme with the United States, as such would require a significant projection of the Japanese military regionwide in order to provide the appropriate defence shield and detection apparatus. This is an extremely productive step for security in East Asia, especially considering the third party, the United States, still considers "regime change" against North Korea an option.
-THE US MILITARY is seeking to substantially move its base operations in Europe to the east, in a move which officials insist is to take advantage of its strategic location with greater proximity to the Mideast than Germany. Nevertheless, the shift does seem intended as a consequence of Germany's lack of support for the US war against Iraq, and to show appreciation (and to build continuing ties with) Eastern European states like Bulgaria which obsequiously played the United States' lapdogs, especially during the Security Council debates. However, the BBC reports, US troops face a cool reception even in Bulgaria, where the popularity of American military basing rights does not match the zeal with which the government pursues it.
-CHRISTOPHER PATTEN, an external representative of the European Union and a European commissioner, slammed Tony Blair's government, especially his chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, for their reluctance to adopt the euro. Euro promoters say Britain is inevitably intertwined with the European economy and its involvement with the euro would allow it to participate in decisions which effect the eurozone. Opponents claim it would lash Britain to a system of monetary rigidity. Nevertheless, the delayed euro decision in Britain risks leaving it increasingly isolated among European Union states, as Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson comes under considerable pressure to adopt the currency, Norway has felt the same centripetal forces leading it to consider EU and euro membership, and Denmark feels pressured to act alonmg with its Scandanavian neighbours.
