Asia Times: In search of a new enemy


	July 27, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

In search of a new enemy
Commentary by Mushahid Hussain

ISLAMABAD - What do the Palestinian intifadah, the Kashmir insurgency, the Chechnya uprising, the unrest in Central Asia, the violence of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines, the civil war in Algeria, and US plans to counter the "threat" from "rogue nations" by building the controversial National Missile Defense system have in common?

All the countries trying to meet these challenges invariably attribute these to a common cause emanating from similar lineage - a "threat" supposedly rooted in a religion conveniently labeled "Islamic extremism".

Whether it is Tel Aviv or Tashkent, Moscow or Manila, New Delhi or Washington, the refrain that is being orchestrated frequently relies on buzzwords like "fundamentalism" or "extremism", all said to be fueling terrorism, the 21st Century's "enemy".

Ever since the collapse of communism with the break-up of the Soviet Union a decade back, a big issue has always been the question: who will be the next enemy? After all, for decades on end after World War II, bloated bureaucracies, intelligence organizations, arms contractors, media outlets, think tanks, and even Hollywood had worked overtime to contain, counter and combat the "Evil Empire" as former US president Ronald Reagan graphically characterized the communist system.

But once communism suddenly collapsed to everyone's surprise, analyses, alliances, armaments all had to "switch gears" in the quest for a new credible adversary, or conjure up one in the process. That is precisely what seems to be happening now.

It is an abiding irony that roots of this violence can actually be traced back to US policies during the decade-long Afghan War, the last battle of the Cold War. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA pumped in US$2.1 billion over a 10-year period (with matching funds from Saudi Arabia and another $1 billion donated by the Chinese) to create a resistance that at its height included almost 200,000 highly-motivated volunteers from 20 Muslim countries.

They were trained in Pakistan but supported covertly by a disparate coalition comprising Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, China and the United States. Osama bin Laden was among the early recruits to the Afghan jihad, along with thousands of others.

This Washington-created coalition - some even called it an "Islamic International" - had motivated Muslims to its fold, and once the Red Army was driven out of Afghanistan, these "out-of-work" freedom fighters had little to do. Some stayed on to fight the remnants of the Soviet regime or dispersed into factions, others returned to their countries to create a new dreaded force of "Afghan Arabs" that became active in Egypt, Algeria, Palestine, Yemen, Tunisia and Jordan. Some turned on their American mentors. The more motivated even fought in Bosnia and Kosovo.

If 1989 saw the humiliation of the Red Army in Afghanistan, it also witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beginning of the insurgency in Kashmir, and fueling of the intifadah in Palestine. It is in this historical context that this issue that is now being lumped together as "terrorism" needs to be understood, so that its causes can be separated from its symptoms.

Some Muslim regimes, which, during the Cold War solicited support from the West under the garb of facing a "threat" from the "Red bogey", today find it convenient to magnify the "Muslim threat" since this is the new political fad. For example, writing in the "International Herald Tribune" on March 10, Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group (ICG) focusing on Central Asia, urged that Western "policy makers must distinguish real from imagined dangers". This, he said, because "the evidence suggests that the threat [of terrorism] is being overstated" by the regimes in that region.

The ICG, in its report released from its headquarters in Brussels on July 4, in a sharp pointer to the real causes of the unrest there, told Central Asian regimes that "they should be doing more to end the human rights abuses, repression of religious freedom, and poverty that all foment unrest at home".

As Central Asia demonstrates, political interests outweigh concerns for human rights, spawning double standards. Take the case of Chechnya, where the Russian general commanding 80,000 troops there admitted on July 6 that his men had engaged in "lawless" conduct. But the same day, after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President George W Bush said Putin is "deeply concerned about extremism and what extremism can mean to Russia", and then added, "As you know, I am too."

Castigating the American president for supporting Moscow on Chechnya, the Washington Post editorially noted on July 23 that this policy "can only be explained by his equally evident zeal to conclude a deal with Mr Putin on missile defense". Hence, it said, Bush has given Putin "a free pass to pursue the most bloody and criminal campaign of military repression now in the world".

The issue of terrorism or extremism is now being used as a justification for magnifying a problem, and using scare terminology to create demons in the popular mind. State terrorism, the use of officially-sanctioned violence against unarmed civilians, is something that has become abhorrent in the new emerging universal culture of human rights. This has been taken note of by the international community, as the cases of Milosevic, Sharon and Pinochet underline. Similarly, the Israeli policy of target killings or authorizing assassinations of politically important figures in the Palestinian resistance has come in for criticism from even the United States.

If terrorism is to be combatted, then three things are in order. First, separate fact from fiction. Second, instead of talking about an "Islamic threat", coordinate with Muslim countries that are themselves victims of terrorism like Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority. Third, attack its causes, not focus on its symptoms.

Fact was separated from fiction in an analysis in the New York Times on July 10, where Larry Johnson wrote: "Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism, and they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism. None of these beliefs are based in fact."

Despite the tall talk, the terrorism threat has, in fact, declined. The same article quoted figures from the US Central Intelligence Agency indicating that during the decade of the Eighties, 4,833 deaths occurred due to terrorism, while in the Nineties, the corresponding figure fell to 2,527.

The New York Times put it aptly: "There are bureaucracies in the military and in intelligence agencies that are desperate to find an enemy to justify budget growth."

The newspaper's analysis concluded with a caveat that is also an eye-opener: "When the threat of terrorism is used to justify everything from building a missile defense to violating constitutional rights [as in the case of some Arab Americans imprisoned without charge], it is time to take a deep breath and reflect on why we are so fearful."

(Inter Press Service)

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