Terrorism
Civil Wrongs
Within 24 hours of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration had announced the identities of the alleged perpetrators, all but one dead, and had largely reconstructed the plot as it understood it. In short order the administration put forth the notion that another such attack was imminent and authorized immediate, aggressive law enforcement and domestic anti-terrorism actions. These activities were justified with statements such as this from Attorney General John Ashcroft: “Today’s terrorists enjoy the benefits of our free society even as they commit themselves to our destruction. They live in our communities—plotting, planning and waiting to kill Americans again.”
Want to Fight Terrorism? Think Globally, Act Locally
Militant Islam is under global scrutiny for clues to conditions that foster its rise, and to strategies for reversing that growth. But the key is not in Islamic doctrine, US foreign policy or formal ties to various nations, as many analysts have asserted. It lies at the community level, with clan and local leaders.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, jihadists remain a minority in Muslim countries. Yet armed militants and suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc worldwide and militant recruitment shows no sign of abating. The reason is found where most recruitment occurs: ungoverned areas of failing or repressive states where public resources are stolen, wasted or otherwise not used for productive social ends.
The Collateral Damage of Lebanese Sovereignty
Residents of Lebanon might be forgiven for wanting to forget the last 12 months. The month-long Israeli onslaught in the summer of 2006, economic stasis, sectarian street violence, political deadlock and assassinations—most recently that of Future Movement deputy Walid ‘Idu, who perished along with ten others in a June 13 car bomb explosion—have weighed heavily upon the country. It is as if the dismembered corpse of the 1975-1990 civil war—assumed to be safely buried—has been exhumed and reassembled, all the more grotesque. Since May 20, the Palestinians in Lebanon, too, have been made to relive past nightmares.
Deflating Middle East Extremism
President Bush and many other supporters of the current Israeli assault on Lebanon and its reoccupation of the Gaza Strip justify these military actions on the grounds that Hamas and Hezbollah do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Negotiating with “terrorists” is impossible, they claim, because Hamas and Hezbollah exist only to destroy Israel.
Bush’s Flawed Flypaper Theory
Forget for a moment how shamelessly President George W. Bush tried to manipulate Americans’ emotions by invoking September 11 six times during his recent prime-time sales pitch for staying the course in Iraq. There is no need to recall the reports finding no connection between that day’s terrorist attacks and Iraq, and no call for repeating that Iraq was not in danger of becoming a “safe haven” for al-Qaida until after it was invaded. The president doesn’t really claim otherwise.
The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar
News of the shooting deaths of three American health professionals working for a Southern Baptist mission hospital in Yemen follows closely on the heels of the very public murder of a highly regarded figure in the Yemeni opposition.
Jarallah Omar, deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party, was assassinated December 28, 2002, minutes after delivering a conciliatory speech to the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, known as al-Tajammu` al-Yemeni lil-Islah or simply Islah.
My Hairdresser Is a Sniper
Two months ago, my hairdresser confessed to me that he was a sniper. During his last trip to downtown Jerusalem, Jake told me, he had seen sharpshooters on top of all the buildings.
"I had never noticed them," I admitted. "How did you know they were there?"
"Well, if you really want to know," he said haltingly, "I was a sniper during the first intifada. They used to put me on top of a building and say, 'See that guy in the yellow shirt? Take him out.' Now the Palestinians are doing the same thing in our cities, only using live bullets instead of rubber-coated ones."
The Band Played On
On May 8, a bomb blast rocked central Karachi, killing at least 14 people, including a number of French nationals. This suicide bombing comes on the heels of the brutal murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, allegedly by Islamist extremist groups who had recently fallen out of the favor of the Pakistani military government. Similar explosions have hit churches and other places of worship around the country this spring. In Karachi, Shia professionals have been assassinated in escalating sectarian violence that has gripped the larger cities of Pakistan.
Ruminations on Political Violence
Texts Reviewed
Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
Joseba Zulaika and William A. Douglass, Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism (New York: Routledge, 1996).
Meredith Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya, eds., What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa (London: Zed Books, 1998).
Suha Sabbagh, ed., Palestinian Women of Gaza and the West Bank (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998).
Adams, The Financing of Terror
James Adams, The Financing of Terror, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.)
I don’t care what anyone says: I liked Claire Sterling’s 1981 classic, The Terror Network. Sure, the plot was weak and the characterization a bit sketchy — but what imagination! Soviet-supplied attack helicopters in the service of the Irish Republican Army! A Palestine “floating on oil”! A KGB terrorist conspiracy to subvert the free world! Ronald Reagan must have liked it too, because he reportedly asked the United States Information Agency to make copies available worldwide.
Melman, The Master Terrorist
Yossi Melman, The Master Terrorist: The True Story Behind Abu Nidal (New York: Adama Books, 1986).
Yossi Melman has pieced together “an interim report” that provides, within limits, a substantial sketch of Abu Nidal and his Palestinian fringe group, most widely known as the Abu Nidal group, or the Fatah Revolutionary Council. As the correspondent of the Israeli daily Ha-aretz, Melman covered the trial of Abu Nidal group members whose assassination attempt upon the Israeli ambassador in London served as Israel’s pretext for its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Melman uses that trial as both the primary source and the framework for The Master Terrorist.
Comprehending Terror
Let us begin with the dictionary definition of terror — “intense, overpowering fear” — and of terrorism — “the use of terrorizing methods of governing or resisting a government.” This simple definition has the virtue of fairness; it focuses on the use of coercive violence and its effects on the victims of terror without regard to the status of the perpetrator. Terrorism does not refer to the mutual fear of armed adversaries, but only to acts of intimidating and injuring unarmed, presumably innocent civilians. Therein lies the revulsion over terrorist acts. This definition leaves out the question of motivation. Motives have varied, and so have methods. Many terrorists in our time have no identifiable goals.
