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Charlatan · 07-22-2005, 07:42 AM

I read an editorial the other day that I found really touched on just what I think is wrong with our appraoch to terrorism in the west. I wanted to share it with you.

Quote:

Prevailing through peace
Rapidly on July 7, four bombs exploded on the London transit system, killing at least 52 and wounding hundreds more. Horrifying images of destruction filled our TV screens. Tony Blair continued the fine British tradition of inspiring oration ("We shall prevail..."), while George W. Bush continued his insistence that we are a world at war. Suddenly, terrorism is with us once again.

Not that it ever really went away. But the awareness that had been simmering quietly for the past few years again reached a boil as our vulnerability -- we in the Western world, who live so peacefully and prosperously much of the time, far from the suffering and bloodshed that is a fact of daily existence for much of the world -- moved to the forefront of our consciousness. Many news reports called the attacks predictable, and in a way nearly everything about the aftermath of the bombings seemed familiar -- an Al-Qaida cell claiming responsibility, the immediate fear of further attacks, the US banging the drums of war, the thinking left exploring root causes to place blame in the White House and the British Parliament, while the loony left speculated that it was Western governments who planted the bombs.

By early this week, nearly everyone was agreed on the lesson of London. No one in the Western world, not even Canada, is "immune from what we've seen happen in London, Madrid and 9/11," as Canadian Public Safety Minister Ann McLellan told reporters July 11. We are not immune and we are not protected, nor can we really become protected, as so many have observed. Homicidal and suicidal people who wish to inflict destruction can do so, and there is not much we can do to stop them.

And yet, learning this lesson leaves us with options. We could -- call it the Bush model -- bunker our society ever further, raising alert levels to perpetual red, surrendering civil liberties and eyeing every passing fellow citizen with suspicion. We could, in other words, live in an ever-increasing state of terror and, in so doing, concede defeat to those who have attacked us.

Alternately, we could recognize that sometimes bad things will happen -- tsunamis, accidents, street crime, terrorist attacks -- and, while mourning the victims of these and other disasters and taking reasonable precautions to protect against obvious threats, get on with our lives. Blair demonstrated how this works to some extent when he refused to allow the bombings to derail the G8 talks on African aid that were taking place when the attack struck his hometown. We could refuse to live in fear of that which we cannot change. And we could, as the prayer says, have the courage to change the things we can.

One thing that should change is the approach to terrorism that says we're at war. Fond as the American television newscasters and presidential administration are of the rhetoric of the military, of the sense that victory is a matter of larger guns and greater determination, such rhetoric -- and the real tactics that back it up -- are unhelpful and misleading. In a war, two sides have armies that wear uniforms and meet in battle. In a war, we know who the enemy is. In a war, victory is possible.

None of those conditions apply to the "war on terrorism." And each time Bush claims that US military strength can and will be victorious, he unjustly dignifies the band of criminals that are the terrorists. And he perpetuates the silly illusion that somehow sending fighter jets to rain fire on some far away nation can stop those who hate the West from killing people in our major cities.

War begets war. You don't need to believe the relativist argument that US aggression justifies terrorism to see how -- to take but one example -- an unprovoked military invasion that has killed more than 22,000 Iraqi civilians while enriching American corporations might breed contempt. It is in such situations that the few in any society inclined to hatred become radicalized. Such is the culture of hatred and revenge, as surely in geopolitics as in samurai films or the family feuds of the American south: with one side's victory begins the other's quest for vengeance.

This is not a war. This is criminal activity that must be policed. But like all crime, we must deal both with tracking down and incarcerating the criminals and with ameliorating the conditions that breed crime. Everyone knows it is foolish to pursue a long-term urban crime-prevention strategy without ensuring educational programs and anti-poverty programs play a key role. The same must be true in the world at large.

If we -- again, in the broadest sense of "we," meaning the developed world at large -- are to be peacemakers, we must undertake to spread our prosperity to the citizens of other countries rather than just allowing our corporations to colonize and exploit them.

The man George W. Bush claims is his personal saviour famously instructed his followers to turn the other cheek, he called peacemakers blessed and warned that anyone who takes up the sword would die by it. Those are the words of his god, not ours. But we'd all be better off if he and other world leaders would heed them as they attempt to deal with terrorism.

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I was amazed when I read this because it was so very close to what I have been thinking for quite sometime.

Having a "war on terrorism" is just as effective as "a war on drugs". In other words not effective at all. I see the main stumbling block to taking the approach of policing, education and anti-poverty as suggested above is that it doesn't come off looking like much is being done in the initial stages. It is a long term approach. Unfortunately politicians tend to shy away from this type of thinking. They would rather talk hard and carry a big stick (that they aren't afraid to use).

I fear that until we adjust our thinking that nothing will change.