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America, Do you Know? |
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Dealing with Terror Published date: 17/8/2003 Depending on your preferred definition of terrorism �� and there is a plethora of possible ones to choose from �� there has arguably been very little terrorist activity in Iraq. Indeed, until the incident at the Jordanian embassy there was none. There is crime, yes, and some of it organized. There is violence, some of it organized as well. And there are political, religious and societal tensions. According to most definitions proposed by academics and practitioners specializing in fields of counter- and anti-terrorism (themselves words that evade definition) terrorism must involve violence against civilians, though neither a school-shooting nor a murder (even if it is mass-murder) necessarily falls within this category. Violent riots, religious violence, political demonstrations or even the use of military hardware do not necessarily fall into legal frameworks dealing with terrorism, and have to be dealt with through other, more or less civil laws. In Iraq, there is no terrorism now. History does, however, give us a fairly good idea that if the coming few years are not handled very, very cautiously indeed, terrorism in Iraq will be a definite fact. Groups that in the past have been identified as "parties involved in violence," like the Iraqi Army to Liberate Jerusalem, may again re-emerge, possibly under different guises. If the Coalition Provisional Authority in does not deal with grievances now, lessons learnt about terrorism by former colonial powers around the world may have been in vain. This is because terrorism, much like its close relations, "guerrilla" war and insurgencies, exists and will continue to do so, as long as there are unaddressed grievances. Of course, when talking about terrorism, nothing is that simple. Certainly nothing is as simple as it at first appears. It is likely that Iraq, like many countries in the world, will see an increase in terrorism that draws much of its justification from Islam. It is dangerous to characterize this as Islamic terrorism, per se, but it is likely that Western observers and media in particular will have no other choice. This builds on a fundamental inability to understand terrorism: even if the perpetrator of a terrorist act is a Muslim, this does not necessarily mean that it is a case of Islamic terrorism. In order to successfully deal with such acts of terrorism, which is probably inevitable, it is necessary both to understand how Islam may be permissive of violence (in defense of the faith, for example) and what the actual objectives of the perpetrator of the violent act are. If we are aware of these issues, and if we understand them, we can form a viable approach to combat terrorism. One way of doing this is to draw a distinction between strategic terrorism and tactical terrorism. When looking at terrorism in general and "religious terrorism" in particular, both strategic and tactical types exist in the world today. Let us take the example of Islam, again. We are told that Hizbollah and Al-Qaida are both Islamic groups employing violence (or terrorism) to reach their particular religious ends, and on this superficial level they seem similar. However, if simplistically looking at the actual objectives of each we see that whilst Hizbollah claims that repatriation to Al-Quds is central, it may actually be the safety of the people which is central. Al-Qaida on the other hand, only exists due to its eschatological enemy: the Other. Using the distinction here, the terrorism employed by Hizbollah is tactical and the terrorism of Al-Qaida is strategic. What a distinction like this does is to enable us to accurately evaluate the threats and devise a counterstrategy. It is possible, for example, to negotiate with a tactical terrorist group, if their actual objectives are known, whereas a strategic terrorist group would not see it as possible to have any sort of compromise, which is necessary for negotiation. On a practical level, this distinction makes legislation and tactics differ significantly in terms of what can and cannot be done to combat and counter terrorism. It is not possible to precisely predict the future. It is, however, possible to make informed evaluations. It is likely, for example, that Iraq will see an upsurge of terrorist activity in the next decade. It is similarly likely that since most individuals in Iraq are Muslims, external observers are likely to pronounce it as religious - Islamic - terrorism. If the logic of religious violence is understood (for example under what circumstances a religion may be permissive of violence), and if an accurate assessment of the grievances and objectives of the group is established, we may be able to prevent future Iraqi terrorism from being with us as long as terrorism in regions where this advice has not been followed. JP Larssen has a PhD in understanding religious violence and specializes in teaching, researching and consulting on religious terrorism. He presently teaches at Al-Maktoum Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies in Dundee, Scotland, and at the University of Wales Lampeter. Direct Link: http://www.baghdadbulletin.com/pageArticle.php?article_id=124&cat_id=28 |