EWI’s 4th Worldwide Security Conference Final Day Part 1
Half way through today I felt rather optimistic and relieved. Why? Because our own analysis and perspectives on fighting terror, Iraq etc were being echo'd by a great number of speakers. It seems that Blairwatch is not a fringe organisation but our views are in the mainstream. Sadly they're not mainstream in Downing St, but we're far, far from alone in our views. At the end of the morning, however, I felt sick and angry.
The first session was The Root Causes of Terrorism. Mary Robinson ex Irish President and UN Commissioner for Human Rights stated that only democracy can beat terrorism and focussed on the use of language as the words we use shape our response and strategy. War is not a good word to describe the situqtion but it allowed civil liberties to be compromised as more restrictions were possible under a 'war'. Orwellian euphamisms were also condemmed.
Louise Richardson ( listen to her presentation 8MB mp3)said it was hard to analyse how and why people become terrorists because: 1, There are so many of them. What can ce common between a palestinian, a Peruvian Shining Path, an Irishman? 2, There are so few of them. Terrorism is a micro-phenomenon It is also a complex phenomenon but there are some common features, such as a highly simplified view of the world, but poverty itself wasn't a main factor; Instead she preferred to talk about risk factors that combine to make someone lean towards terror. There were three broad ingredients; a disgruntled individual, a complicit community and an underlying greviance. There is no militqry solution to terrorism and the military themselves feel they are too much of a blunt object to succeed. The US have made two errors; to use the word 'war' and to focus emnity on individuals such as bin Laden. Bringing in the world to solve a global problem and educating people about their aims would be more successful.
Stephen Tankel ( listen to his presentation 8MB mp3) spoke on how inconsistency in Western values and our strategy in fighting terrorism has permitted al Qaeda to position itself as a defender of muslim values. He then went on to discuss other terrorist actions, such as the Christian Identity movement, Ayran Nations and the US militias. We talk about Islamic terrorism but when it comes to these fundamentalist Christians who commit acts of terror we start referring to them as the 'radical right' and not as Christian terrorists.
The other casual problems
The other casual problems are money and patronage. Many terror organisations morph into criminal enterprises and use their 'cause' as a front. there are no shortage of liberally minded people and institutions in the world willing to confer legitimacy on such organisations in the name of conflict resolution, research etc.
Analyse any terror organisatuion flourishing today and behind it there is or has been the state interest of an external power.
Louise Richardson makes her academic living in Boston perpetuating the terror debate, when most cognisent in the area of conflict research already know that the 'why people become terrorists' question is simply too multi-layered, too complex to answer, because in reality there are just too many reasons to name. One doesn't require a doctorate to state the 'three broad ingredients'.
But, a root cause of terrorism is aggression by the bigger and the stronger. You don't need a conference to discuss and identify the root casues of terrorism today, especially when the use of terror was diminishing in the early nineties - just look at the consequences of Bush and Blair foreign policy and you are most of the way toward the answer.