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War Against Terror:
Rekindling Terrorism ?

By Subhash Gatade

23 December, 2005
Countercurrents.org

A innocuous looking list of names of 'possible terrorists' submitted by US government recently to the European Air Industry has inadvertently opened up a lid of sorts over the effectiveness of the 'war against terror'. According to AFP the updated list contained names and other details of eighty thousand terrorists. A Swedish Newspaper ' Vensca Dagblatt' based on its sources in the European Air Industry was candid enough to inform its readers that prior to 9/11 the list contained mere 16 names. By the end of the year 2001 the list had shot up to 1,000 and the next year saw the list reaching a figure of 40,000.

Definitely even a layperson can decipher the meaning behind the quantum leap as far as number of 'possible terrorists' was concerned. Post 9/11 we were witness to one of the largest mobilisations of the countries under the leadership of USA supposedly to quell the 'menace of terrorism' from the face of the earth. Attack on Afghanistan came next allegedly for supporting Laden where the Taliban regime was dethroned. Similar attempts were undertaken to attack Iraq, which ofcourse did not prove successful.

Nearly four and half years after the beginning of this war for 'infinite justice' what is the picture before us.Can it be claimed that terrorism has finally been curbed as George Bush keeps telling us or it has got a new lease of life post 9/11 as many of his critics keep reminding us. If one goes by the figures submitted by the US itself presented earlier, then it is difficult to believe the rhetoric spun by Bush or Secretary of State Condy Rice. A quantum jump of 500 times in the number of 'possible terrorists' is a clear admission of the fact that the campaign has gone haywire.The way terrorist modules were unearthed countries of western Europe or the way terrorist attacks were witnessed in unknown areas was an added proof to this contention.
Ofcourse it is not for the first time that the US government has had to publicly come to terms with this stark fact. It was not for nothing that the US government decided to stop the publication of an annual report which it had been doing since last 19 years. It has been reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s office ordered “Patterns of Global Terrorism” report eliminated because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush’s administration’s frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. (Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report, By Jonathan S. Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers, Posted on Fri, Apr. 15, 2005).

A moot question arises why did things reach such a pass that leave curbing terrorism it has engendered terrorist activities in hitherto unknown areas. It is easy to understand that a disjunction exists between the reality as it exists at the ground level and the rationale provided by the USA to control it. One can refer to the very first statement by George Bush which was repeated ad nauseum as the new mantra of countering terrorism. It talked about terrorists abhorrence of democracy and 'our way of life' and therefore their keenness to destroy 'us'.
The rationale thus presented puts forward a rosy picture of USA and its policies which are wreaking havoc all over the world. It also paints the terrorists as some lunatic fringe of society which are ready to destroy everything before them.An analyst has rightly put it : 'This idée fixe — that the rise of anti-American terrorism owes nothing to American policies — in effect postulates an America that is always the aggrieved innocent in a treacherous world, a benign United States government peacefully going about its business but being “provoked” into taking extreme measures to defend its people, its freedom and democracy.'

Ofcourse public posturing apart the rulers of the USA are not unaware about the interconnections between their policies and terrorist activities. A Department of Defense study in 1997 had concluded: “Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States.”( US Department of Defense, October 1997, Final Report, Vol.1. p.31) Jimmy Carter had told the New York Times in a 1989 (March 26) interview: “We sent Marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers — women and children and farmers and housewives — in those villages around Beirut. ... As a result of that ... we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of our hostages and that is what has precipitated some of the terrorist attacks.”

Today even diehard supporters of George Bush are aware that things have reached such a state that anti americanism has reached the pinnacle. One can very well recognise that it is of its own making.

In one of his celebrated pieces 'Our War On Terrorism' Howard Zinn had rightly concluded that 'Unless we reexamine our policies—our quartering of soldiers in a hundred countries (the quartering of foreign soldiers, remember, was one of the grievances of the American revolutionaries), our support of the occupation of Palestinian lands, our insistence on controlling the oil of the Middle East—we will always live in fear. If we were to announce that we will reconsider those policies, and began to change them, we might start to dry up the huge reservoir of hatred where terrorists are hatched.'

Whether George Bush is listening ?

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