Max Hastings: Phoney War in Terror

[Martin Eden]

THE SPECTATOR 8 January 2005

If the leaders of the Western world want to do our security a favour, they could adopt a New Year resolution to economise on the use of the word ‘terrorist’ in their rhetoric. This proposal is based not upon indulgence towards al-Qa’eda or the IRA, but upon the need to think clear-headedly about how best to protect our societies.
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Terrorism is simply one means of applying force in pursuit of political ends. It is traditionally adopted by the weak, who cannot hope to prevail in a conventional contest. Because the military power of the United States and its allies is today overwhelming, we must assume that terrorism — asymmetric warfare — will be the dominant tactic adopted by our enemies in the future, whatever regional conflicts persist between more evenly matched opponents.
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The declaration of a ‘war against terror’ falsely implies a contest that can be waged principally through the deployment of conventional military might, which it cannot. Some terrorist movements operate beyond the pale of possible political dialogue — al-Qa’eda to name but one. Others do not. Most people who have studied the problem of Chechnya believe that it must be resolved by political means, rather than by Moscow’s crude application of force. The Chechen separatists may employ repugnant methods to pursue their ends, but it seems madness to endorse implicitly or explicitly President Putin’s response to them.
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Some terrorist movements — Baader-Meinhof and the Italian Red Brigades spring to mind — require only a law-enforcement response, because they represent no plausible political cause nor substantial body of opinion, and are wedded to violence for its own sake in the fashion of 19th-century anarchists. History suggests, however, that most terrorist campaigns are best addressed by a mix of political generosity towards the community from which terrorists come, and armed suppression of irreconcilable men of violence.
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The ‘war on terror’ is a phrase cynically abused by President Bush to further his own re-election. Now that he has secured another four-year lease on the White House, it would be a boon to the world if he abandoned unhelpful sloganising

Read more:
http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec611.html

[GreenArrow]

1. it'd be even more helpful if the Democrats would

quit helping W and abandon unhelpful and dishonest sloganizing.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. but it seems madness to endorse implicitly or explicitly President Putin’s

response to them.<<

who ever said the resident was not mad?

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/1/spying_on_us/



The power to eavesdrop on specific individuals nearly proved to be NSA's undoing. A commission organized by President Gerald Ford discovered that Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were unable to resist the temptation of using NSA to amass files on more than 7000 U.S. citizens and 1000 organizations, mostly those opposed to the Vietnam War. In 1975, Congress decided it had had enough, and created the Select Intelligence Committee to keep watch over NSA activities.