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| Fighting Terrorism; The Developed World's Approach and Global Order |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
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”
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Franklin Cudjoe
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