The ever-changing faces of
terror By Sreeram Chaulia
NEW YORK - The recently expressed view of
Nigel Inkster, the former deputy chief of
Britain's secret service (MI6), that Pakistani
Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is now the world's
"deadliest Islamist threat and public enemy number
one" reveals the puerility of the so-called "war
on terror". As it enters its seventh year, the
massive American effort to root out al-Qaeda and
its allied organizations around the world faces a
credibility problem with few successes and several
mishaps.
On commencing his costly
misadventures in 2001, US President George W Bush
confidentially delivered bad news to his military
generals that "this will be a long campaign". As
the vague and drifting campaign reached the limits
of temporal stretching with no
end in
sight, a psychological strategy that found favor
with the US and its allies was to personalize and
simplify the problem for the imagination of
skeptical publics.
If victory is redefined
as eliminating individual personalities rather
than defeating a complex network or ideology, the
bitter pill of failure can not only be sweetened
but also showcased as a sweetmeat for citizens'
consumption. This carefully crafted ruse of
selling defeat as success begins with lionization
of an al-Qaeda-affiliated leader through
relentless coverage of his dreaded activities in
the state-browbeaten media. The next step is to
keep releasing stories that a hunt is on for the
high-value target and that US/North Atlantic
Treaty Organization intelligence is closing in on
the star figure.
Since warfare is lethal,
the likelihood of an operational commander being
killed in combat is not far-fetched. After months
or years of media buildup about the significance
of a particular jihadi leader and the extent of
havoc he has caused, when the subject does meet
his maker, the event will be hailed by American
spokespersons as a major milestone and feather in
the cap for the "war on terror". The reality on
the ground is likely that a replacement for the
slain leader has already slipped into his new
shoes, but Western media will be asked to raise a
toast and self-congratulations will resound in
Washington and London that they are one step
closer to extinguishing the Islamist threat.
Bin Laden was a relatively unknown
commodity in the Western world until the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but the profile
upgrade he subsequently received generated
widespread astonishment at the evil he
represented. By painting him as the supreme
patriarch of jihad incorporated, the message was
conveyed that nabbing or killing him would be the
finest moment that would mark the beginning of the
end, if not the end, of al-Qaeda. The frequency of
"Osama the phenomenon" stories gradually thinned
in the news media once the war-makers realized
that he was proving impossible to trace.
The focus then shifted to Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the number two of al-Qaeda, who was
copiously written about as the real power behind
the throne. The Egyptian doctor was portrayed as
even more lethal than bin Laden because of his
acumen in managing actual terrorist missions. Some
commentators went to the extent of opining that
bin Laden was a puppet figure and that the "real
brain" was Zawahiri. Speculation that US raids may
have killed or fatally wounded Zawahiri has been
appearing for many years now, only to be
eventually disconfirmed.
Every time there
is a report that he was targeted with a missile or
an aerial bomb, Western publics are made to
visualize the desired eventuality and feel that
the "war on terror" is on track. If Zawahiri is
truly terminated, there would be a series of
statements and press releases from the US and its
allies to the effect that "we are winning and here
is the proof",
In 2004 and 2005, as the
quagmire of Iraq deepened, the personality of Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi was ratcheted up in Western
governmental and media outlets as the biggest
threat. Gory details of the Jordanian's massacres
and cruelty were discussed with awe and
biliousness. Depicted as a "terror mastermind" and
"target number one", few were aware that Zarqawi
was not an organic member of al-Qaeda and even
opposed al-Qaeda's aims of unifying Sunni and
Shi'ite terrorists under a single Islamist banner.
Zarqawi's assassination in June 2006 was
reported with relief and glee as President George
W Bush claimed that his troops had "delivered
justice to the most wanted terrorist". It was
another public relations blitz that made the war
look less of an unmitigated disaster and more of a
mixed outcome with reasons to smile.
Abu
Laith al-Libi and Baitullah Mehsud are the latest
terrorist leaders to receive excessive
biographical attention and price tags on their
heads. The former's death in January was applauded
as a "major blow" to al-Qaeda, even though neutral
sources were warning that the network is going
from strength to strength. If and when Mehsud is
obituarized, it will be the same shebang all over
that al-Qaeda is losing its top guns one by one
and that the war is being won.
For those
who see through the game, it is obvious that the
personalization trick covers up huge foreign
policy fiascoes hatched by Washington and London.
Fewer and fewer people are willing to buy the
comic book super villain version of the "war on
terror". The typical cowboy folklore of chasing
down the "bad guys" and ending up winner on a
happy note has taken a beating.
Sreeram Chaulia is an analyst of
international affairs at the Maxwell School of
Citizenship, Syracuse, New York.
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