TakingITGlobal - Panorama

Published on: Sep 24, 2002

Topic:

Type: Opinions

https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=647

As surely as the ocean tides ebb and flow, a rising tide of terrorism has begun sending its grisly waves of death and destruction surging through the world. It does appear that so many opportunities remain open for terrorists; it is impossible to guard against all attacks. And God has prophesied that evil will grow worse and worse (II Tim.3: 13).
That prophecy written more than 1900 years ago is becoming increasingly relevant in our modern day.
The former Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, aptly said after the September 11 bombing that the “ survival of civilization is at stake”.
Terrorism is the single most dangerous crime against humanity. Killing people outside a war is terrorism. The purpose of terrorism is to change the behavior of the persons attacked. On 11 September 2001 the behavior of the American people changed. But all lovers of freedom, who make up more than half of the world’s population, had their behavior changed too. The attack on America is an aggression on global peace and freedom. In the words of an American friend, “ I have just realized that terrorism can occur any where. Take care.” It’s fighting requires a global approach.
In May 2001, I had the privilege of attending a high-level international symposium in Switzerland and in one of the leadership sessions, the leader, the President of The National Beer Wholesalers Association of America stated that there are 86 known terrorist groups, which according to the New York Times, fomented 423 international attacks in 2000. These attacks rose about eight percent over the previous year. Almost half were directed against the United States. Particularly with the sponsorship of totalitarian rouge states, these groups and their activities undermine democracy and the rule of law. Most of these groups, he went on, hide behind radical ideologies and seek to identify themselves with the poor and refugees from ongoing local conflicts, but their activity remains murderous and destructive. The attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in D.C, were not only cowardly but also murderous and destructive.
It is unfortunate that those who support these terrorist pigs cite the incredulous saying that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. I wonder the kind of freedom fighters who take up arms against an opponent without the giving the opponent the chance to defend himself. Why should the target of these so-called freedom fighters be innocent men and women from across the globe? What about attacking innocent and hard working Africans in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998? These trouble makers and merchants of death have caused the deaths of at least 5 million Africans since the end of colonialism in the early 1960s.

A singular lesson of the 20th century is that to give in to international blackmail is to invite more and expanded terrorism. Yet as we grapple with the barbarism and ways to counter it, we should be mindful that this new war is a complex one relying on modern technology.
At a conference on global peace held before the events of 9/11 and under the auspices of The Carnegie Institute for Peace, one participant suggested that adversaries might seek to draw the United States into expensive, traditional campaigns to divert its expenditures from new technological development to the fighting of comparatively routine wars. Such an outcome would allow potential enemies more time for technological catch-up. Other participants suggested that smaller states, state-sponsored terrorist groups, and non-state actors may be rapidly developing the capacity to attack the United States at low cost, often by adapting commercially available technology. For example, as rogue states and terrorist groups develop biological weapons capacity that could cause serious economic disruption in the United States, they call into question the ability of the United States to prevent an attack or respond quickly. The fears of these participants have been confirmed and the ‘new war’ has begun.

Fighting terror is a must. The approach however, must be global. The war drums being beaten by what have been referred to as WAR HAWKS on a possible attack on Iraq is being seen in the eyes of many as unwarranted and by war-hungry leader in the person of Mr. George Bush. Others say he wants to continue his father’s unfinished war in the Gulf region.

There appears to be a global understanding of the effects of terrorism and a general consensus to fighting it but the methods are not unitary.
A school of thought led by Lynn Miller believes that the war system survives today not only because it is encouraged by the Westphalian structure of decentralized states, but also because it has always been seen as the ultimate alternative to impotence in the face of unacceptable threats to society. If all states were to move toward non-interventionist foreign policies built upon effective civilian-based defense, then the ultimate sanction of war-its traditionally legitimate form would no longer be needed.

But such prospects are regarded as utopian since there are too many societies ruled by oppressive elites who manifest themselves sometimes precariously through the threat and use of force against their own people. For these reasons, they argue, it is necessary to complement what are essentially the self-help strategies of non-interventionism and civilian-based defense with a global capability to use force as a sanction against unacceptable bahaviour by such actors.

But we need to be careful the other school of thought warns. In our global quest to conquer terrorism, we need not rely on rumours. Every Information about suspected imminent terrorist attacks or indeed the capability of state and non-state actors to launch attacks must be authenticated. The manner and speed of the authentication process is crucial: the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 succeeded despite the fact that knowledge of the impending attack had reached the War Department in Washington hours before it occurred. About three decades ago, a flock of Canadian geese set off the American warning system to detect incoming nuclear missiles, and only subsequent authentication procedures prevented a “retaliatory” nuclear strike, which could have ended in World War III.
Interestingly, a congressional report has said that relevant security agencies of the United States had information of pending attacks on the United States but surprisingly paid little heed to them.

More recently, Saddam Hussein of Iraq is said to have an estimated 700 sites and another 100 secret sites for the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction. Experts say these sites will take more than a year to investigate, but Saddam Hussein has less than a year given the war-tensed atmosphere building up on him. There appears to be a knowledge problem. Thomas Sowell has said ideas are everywhere but knowledge is rare. How much do we know of Saddam Hussein’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction? Why would Saddam use these weapons if he has them against her immediate neighbours or the United States? “During the Gulf War, when Iraqis were under ferocious attack, the Scud missiles they fired at Israel were equipped with only conventional explosives, not with the chemical or biological warheads that everybody feared he might use,” says Robert Higgs a Senior Fellow of the Independent Institute of California, in the United States.

Some characterize him as another Hitler, which stretches the limits of one imagination. I’m not holding brief for Saddam; after all he rules Iraq with an iron fist. There are a number of such leaders today and yet the United States and Britain have not attacked them. What about nuclear producing countries such as India, Pakistan, China, or Russia not to speak of France or the United Kingdom. The problem with Saddam is that the right weapons if they exist are in the wrong hands but Saddam hardly qualifies as a potential suicide bomber.
The Iraqi deputy Minister Tareq Aziz has said that the allegations of possessing weapons of mass destruction are a pretext to justify unjustifiable attacks on his country. He says the UN inspectors are always keeping the inspections of alleged weapons going in order to fatten their pay cheques. It is a grand design to control Iraqi oil; change the map of the Middle East to help establish a Jewish State. Iraq, the Minister said, has no connections with Al-Queada folks.

Britain however says there is a dossier of evidence to suggest otherwise
She must publish it immediately and allow an unbiased assessment before a bullet is fired on Iraqi territory.

Wars have unintended consequences. An independent Conservative Columnist has posed the following questions: Would an American invasion of an Arab country further radicalize the Islamic world, leading to the rise of unfriendly governments in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Would the United States then have to invade a hostile Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons?

An American attack on Iraq would cause a loss of sympathy among her European allies. Would a more isolated America receive the same cooperation in the battle against terror?
Is the level of threat to the United States from a country of 23 million relatively poor and uneducated people blown out of proportion?

War hawks believe that a demonstration of U.S military clout would improve the Middle Eastern situation. But Israel has been demonstrating clout for decades and is still engulfed by terrorism.

Lynn Miller has said that a powerful country has as much difficulty achieving the goal of social democracy in a distant nation by invading, oppressing, and killing its people as the mayor of a large city has to uphold a just social order by ordering that its strikers in an illegal job action be shot on sight.

Since, in the words of the famous aphorism, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, solutions for such disproportionate uses of force ideally must be sought through constitutional restraints on the exercise of force. I’m reliably informed that the Congress of the United States has not asserted its authority to declare war for over half a century, leaving the president solely in control of war powers to the detriment of America’s democracy and a clear violation of the Constitution. As a result, a group of American historians have signed a memo to Congress and I quote “ urge our members of Congress to assume their constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on whether or not to declare war on Iraq.We do so because Americans deserve to hear their representatives deliberate about a possible war, lest such a momentous course of action be undertaken by the president alone after a public airing filled with rumours, leaks, and speculations”

As Congress debates, they must be guided by the fact that we need to learn to control the use of force to the extent that it undermines, rather than supports, essential democratic values in the fight against terrorism. Almost everywhere, governments have taken September 11th as an opportunity to restrict their citizens’ freedom. Military missions have been ordered by Mr. Bush to try suspected terrorists. A second concern raised by The Cato Institute in America is that the US administration is “supporting measures antithetical to freedom, such as secretive subpoenas, secretive arrests, secretive trials and secretive deportations.” The third area of concern is the sinister nature of some of the wider measures now being taken in the war on terror. Despite denials of racial profiling Arabs have come under close scrutiny over the past year. There must not be the slightest attempt to restrict civil liberties, the core of democratic values in the name of an effective campaign against terror.

A school of thought suggests that in addition to the need to uphold democratic values, we must encourage the development of defensive strategies in foreign policy, such as that of a civilian–based defense system.

Another seeks the kinds of concrete actions from antagonists that can work to minimize their mutual hostility and work to build more harmonious relationships

Still another and more important there should be the widest possible international sharing of any decision to use force in an interventionary way, recognizing that what is possible in one context may not be so everywhere.

Franklin Cudjoe
Programme Officer/ Research Assistant
Institute of Economic Affairs,
Ghana

« return.



by franklin cudjoe
Published on: Sep 24, 2002
Topic:
Type: Opinions
https://www.tigweb.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=647


As surely as the ocean tides ebb and flow, a rising tide of terrorism has begun sending its grisly waves of death and destruction surging through the world. It does appear that so many opportunities remain open for terrorists; it is impossible to guard against all attacks. And God has prophesied that evil will grow worse and worse (II Tim.3: 13). That prophecy written more than 1900 years ago is becoming increasingly relevant in our modern day. The former Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, aptly said after the September 11 bombing that the “ survival of civilization is at stake”. Terrorism is the single most dangerous crime against humanity. Killing people outside a war is terrorism. The purpose of terrorism is to change the behavior of the persons attacked. On 11 September 2001 the behavior of the American people changed. But all lovers of freedom, who make up more than half of the world’s population, had their behavior changed too. The attack on America is an aggression on global peace and freedom. In the words of an American friend, “ I have just realized that terrorism can occur any where. Take care.” It’s fighting requires a global approach. In May 2001, I had the privilege of attending a high-level international symposium in Switzerland and in one of the leadership sessions, the leader, the President of The National Beer Wholesalers Association of America stated that there are 86 known terrorist groups, which according to the New York Times, fomented 423 international attacks in 2000. These attacks rose about eight percent over the previous year. Almost half were directed against the United States. Particularly with the sponsorship of totalitarian rouge states, these groups and their activities undermine democracy and the rule of law. Most of these groups, he went on, hide behind radical ideologies and seek to identify themselves with the poor and refugees from ongoing local conflicts, but their activity remains murderous and destructive. The attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in D.C, were not only cowardly but also murderous and destructive. It is unfortunate that those who support these terrorist pigs cite the incredulous saying that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. I wonder the kind of freedom fighters who take up arms against an opponent without the giving the opponent the chance to defend himself. Why should the target of these so-called freedom fighters be innocent men and women from across the globe? What about attacking innocent and hard working Africans in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998? These trouble makers and merchants of death have caused the deaths of at least 5 million Africans since the end of colonialism in the early 1960s. A singular lesson of the 20th century is that to give in to international blackmail is to invite more and expanded terrorism. Yet as we grapple with the barbarism and ways to counter it, we should be mindful that this new war is a complex one relying on modern technology. At a conference on global peace held before the events of 9/11 and under the auspices of The Carnegie Institute for Peace, one participant suggested that adversaries might seek to draw the United States into expensive, traditional campaigns to divert its expenditures from new technological development to the fighting of comparatively routine wars. Such an outcome would allow potential enemies more time for technological catch-up. Other participants suggested that smaller states, state-sponsored terrorist groups, and non-state actors may be rapidly developing the capacity to attack the United States at low cost, often by adapting commercially available technology. For example, as rogue states and terrorist groups develop biological weapons capacity that could cause serious economic disruption in the United States, they call into question the ability of the United States to prevent an attack or respond quickly. The fears of these participants have been confirmed and the ‘new war’ has begun. Fighting terror is a must. The approach however, must be global. The war drums being beaten by what have been referred to as WAR HAWKS on a possible attack on Iraq is being seen in the eyes of many as unwarranted and by war-hungry leader in the person of Mr. George Bush. Others say he wants to continue his father’s unfinished war in the Gulf region. There appears to be a global understanding of the effects of terrorism and a general consensus to fighting it but the methods are not unitary. A school of thought led by Lynn Miller believes that the war system survives today not only because it is encouraged by the Westphalian structure of decentralized states, but also because it has always been seen as the ultimate alternative to impotence in the face of unacceptable threats to society. If all states were to move toward non-interventionist foreign policies built upon effective civilian-based defense, then the ultimate sanction of war-its traditionally legitimate form would no longer be needed. But such prospects are regarded as utopian since there are too many societies ruled by oppressive elites who manifest themselves sometimes precariously through the threat and use of force against their own people. For these reasons, they argue, it is necessary to complement what are essentially the self-help strategies of non-interventionism and civilian-based defense with a global capability to use force as a sanction against unacceptable bahaviour by such actors. But we need to be careful the other school of thought warns. In our global quest to conquer terrorism, we need not rely on rumours. Every Information about suspected imminent terrorist attacks or indeed the capability of state and non-state actors to launch attacks must be authenticated. The manner and speed of the authentication process is crucial: the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 succeeded despite the fact that knowledge of the impending attack had reached the War Department in Washington hours before it occurred. About three decades ago, a flock of Canadian geese set off the American warning system to detect incoming nuclear missiles, and only subsequent authentication procedures prevented a “retaliatory” nuclear strike, which could have ended in World War III. Interestingly, a congressional report has said that relevant security agencies of the United States had information of pending attacks on the United States but surprisingly paid little heed to them. More recently, Saddam Hussein of Iraq is said to have an estimated 700 sites and another 100 secret sites for the manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction. Experts say these sites will take more than a year to investigate, but Saddam Hussein has less than a year given the war-tensed atmosphere building up on him. There appears to be a knowledge problem. Thomas Sowell has said ideas are everywhere but knowledge is rare. How much do we know of Saddam Hussein’s ability to develop weapons of mass destruction? Why would Saddam use these weapons if he has them against her immediate neighbours or the United States? “During the Gulf War, when Iraqis were under ferocious attack, the Scud missiles they fired at Israel were equipped with only conventional explosives, not with the chemical or biological warheads that everybody feared he might use,” says Robert Higgs a Senior Fellow of the Independent Institute of California, in the United States. Some characterize him as another Hitler, which stretches the limits of one imagination. I’m not holding brief for Saddam; after all he rules Iraq with an iron fist. There are a number of such leaders today and yet the United States and Britain have not attacked them. What about nuclear producing countries such as India, Pakistan, China, or Russia not to speak of France or the United Kingdom. The problem with Saddam is that the right weapons if they exist are in the wrong hands but Saddam hardly qualifies as a potential suicide bomber. The Iraqi deputy Minister Tareq Aziz has said that the allegations of possessing weapons of mass destruction are a pretext to justify unjustifiable attacks on his country. He says the UN inspectors are always keeping the inspections of alleged weapons going in order to fatten their pay cheques. It is a grand design to control Iraqi oil; change the map of the Middle East to help establish a Jewish State. Iraq, the Minister said, has no connections with Al-Queada folks. Britain however says there is a dossier of evidence to suggest otherwise She must publish it immediately and allow an unbiased assessment before a bullet is fired on Iraqi territory. Wars have unintended consequences. An independent Conservative Columnist has posed the following questions: Would an American invasion of an Arab country further radicalize the Islamic world, leading to the rise of unfriendly governments in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Would the United States then have to invade a hostile Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons? An American attack on Iraq would cause a loss of sympathy among her European allies. Would a more isolated America receive the same cooperation in the battle against terror? Is the level of threat to the United States from a country of 23 million relatively poor and uneducated people blown out of proportion? War hawks believe that a demonstration of U.S military clout would improve the Middle Eastern situation. But Israel has been demonstrating clout for decades and is still engulfed by terrorism. Lynn Miller has said that a powerful country has as much difficulty achieving the goal of social democracy in a distant nation by invading, oppressing, and killing its people as the mayor of a large city has to uphold a just social order by ordering that its strikers in an illegal job action be shot on sight. Since, in the words of the famous aphorism, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, solutions for such disproportionate uses of force ideally must be sought through constitutional restraints on the exercise of force. I’m reliably informed that the Congress of the United States has not asserted its authority to declare war for over half a century, leaving the president solely in control of war powers to the detriment of America’s democracy and a clear violation of the Constitution. As a result, a group of American historians have signed a memo to Congress and I quote “ urge our members of Congress to assume their constitutional responsibility to debate and vote on whether or not to declare war on Iraq.We do so because Americans deserve to hear their representatives deliberate about a possible war, lest such a momentous course of action be undertaken by the president alone after a public airing filled with rumours, leaks, and speculations” As Congress debates, they must be guided by the fact that we need to learn to control the use of force to the extent that it undermines, rather than supports, essential democratic values in the fight against terrorism. Almost everywhere, governments have taken September 11th as an opportunity to restrict their citizens’ freedom. Military missions have been ordered by Mr. Bush to try suspected terrorists. A second concern raised by The Cato Institute in America is that the US administration is “supporting measures antithetical to freedom, such as secretive subpoenas, secretive arrests, secretive trials and secretive deportations.” The third area of concern is the sinister nature of some of the wider measures now being taken in the war on terror. Despite denials of racial profiling Arabs have come under close scrutiny over the past year. There must not be the slightest attempt to restrict civil liberties, the core of democratic values in the name of an effective campaign against terror. A school of thought suggests that in addition to the need to uphold democratic values, we must encourage the development of defensive strategies in foreign policy, such as that of a civilian–based defense system. Another seeks the kinds of concrete actions from antagonists that can work to minimize their mutual hostility and work to build more harmonious relationships Still another and more important there should be the widest possible international sharing of any decision to use force in an interventionary way, recognizing that what is possible in one context may not be so everywhere. Franklin Cudjoe Programme Officer/ Research Assistant Institute of Economic Affairs, Ghana « return.