The
Real Terrorism Plot
By Ramzy Baroud
24 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
And
yet another menacing terror plot was thwarted 10 August, with the arrest
of 24 suspects, all British Muslims. It was an ominous conspiracy aimed
at committing "mass murder" on an "unimaginable"
scale, British authorities quickly concluded. US authorities hastily
joined the action, too claiming a decisive victory over the plotters,
thanks in part to the quick thinking of and awesome coordination between
US security and intelligence branches. Britain congratulated the US;
the US thanked Britain; both saluted Pakistan and its ever-loyal leadership,
itself conducting a brutal war against undefined, shadowy groups that
emerge and vanish, all too conveniently, and too neatly.
Moments after the shocking
announcement, as security threat levels reached their peak in the US
and Britain, the debate commenced and it relentlessly continues: Why
would a British Muslim choose such a destructive path while living in
a democratic society, where change, at least theoretically, is possible
through peaceful means?
The media also sprung into
action. Ready-to-serve answers were deftly provided by all the usual
experts, instantly infusing more conventional wisdom upon a vulnerable
public. Attempts to contextualise terrorism within a political milieu
were decidedly torpedoed. Despite years of war that seem to have achieved
nothing but "mass murder" on an "unimaginable" scale,
no one should dare explain the true roots of terrorism; one may explain
why poor neighbourhoods in America yield greater crime rates than others,
or why abused children become abusers themselves, or even why US soldiers
in Iraq often "snap" and massacre entire families, but terrorism
that involves Muslims should not in any way be discussed outside its
useful parameters of a misguided generation with a radical interpretation
of religion: the Islam that produces "Muslim fascists" as
President George W Bush termed it.
Very few moderate, or sensible
voices are consulted in such debates. British media proves no exception,
examining the viewpoints of the utterly fundamentalist or the utterly
liberal. The first wants a return to the Islamic caliphate, with London
as its capital, and the latter dismisses as hogwash the attempt to examine
the government's foreign policy as a reason of radicalisation searing
among an already embattled and alienated young Muslim generation.
Expectedly, a letter that
was signed by three Muslim MPs and 38 organisations accusing Prime Minister
Tony Blair's foreign policy in Iraq, and his support of the Israeli
carnage in Lebanon, of "putting civilians at increased risk both
in the UK and abroad" hardly changed anything. British Home Secretary
John Reid found the mere suggestion of a link unacceptable. Many others
followed suit. If anything, the terror plot will strengthen the argument
of those eager to harden terror laws, widen the gap between peoples
from different religions, but most dangerously give yet more leash to
those who champion war as a solution to conflict.
One week before the alleged
plot was impeded, 100,000 people in London marched in protest at the
British government's position -- particularly that of Blair in support
of Israel's war of "self-defence" in Lebanon. Hundreds of
protesters threw children's shoes near the doorsteps of the prime minister's
residence at 10 Downing Street. They were meant to symbolise the number
of children killed in this war, mostly by the Israeli army. I gazed
at the impromptu memorial as I held Lebanese and Palestinian flags.
Thinking of the tiny bodies of hundreds of children, mingled underneath
tons of concrete in Lebanon and Gaza gave me that ever-familiar chill
of dejection. Only the nudge of a police officer to my shoulder forced
me to move along.
What is radicalisation but
a culmination of bitterness, resentment and anger that lurk desperately
inside, which often translate to despicable behaviour: terrorism? But
if terrorism is killing innocent civilians to achieve political ends,
then how else can one explain the American-British war on Iraq with
a death toll that has long passed the 100,000 mark? Or the ongoing war
in Afghanistan? Or Israel's wars in Palestine and Lebanon, and the funding
or abetting of these wars by the US and British governments?
Is it not rational to deduce
that "mass murder" in the Middle East, happening at such an
"unimaginable" scale, could lead to a culmination of bitterness,
resentment, anger and radicalisation that would unavoidably yield terrorism?
And since Muslims seem to be the primary target of this mass murder,
is it not equally rational to expect that the perpetrators of such terrorist
acts might mostly be Muslims?
The insistence on disallowing
this argument as one imparted primarily by terror "apologists"
is often induced with equal determination to prolong the terrorising
wars, of which civilians are the primary victims. A change of course
might be understood as bowing to terrorists, as Spain is often accused
of doing. Thus the carnage in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan
must continue. This seems to be the underlying logic in refusing to
acknowledge the urgency of a fundamental shift in foreign policy, in
Britain as well as in the United States.
Those who cautiously attempted
to link the terrorist acts of 11 September to America's political, financial
and military support of the State of Israel were dismissed, even shunned,
whenever they disseminated their logic. Only the drums of war were to
be heard. Now, nearly five years later, are we any closer to global
peace and tranquillity? How many more lives must be wasted, how much
more blood must be shed, and how many more children's shoes must be
piled up on Downing Street to realise that cluster bombs don't hold
the keys to peace, nor do the torture camps of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
Bay?
One must not accept the logic
of those who believe that blowing up innocent travellers is a prudent
response to blowing up Lebanese children seeking shelter in a half standing
building in South Lebanon, however inhumane. But to continue to pretend
that those who carry out acts of "mass murder" at an "unimaginable"
scale in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East are not perpetrators
of terrorism themselves -- whether directly or by inspiring a cycle
terrorist responses -- is to resign to doing nothing in defence of the
innocent, British, Palestinian or Lebanese, which, I believe, is equally
repugnant.
Ramzy Baroud teaches
mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is the author
of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle.
He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com. He can be
contacted at: [email protected]