Rethinking al Qaida

Rethinking al Qaida

Rethinking al Qaida

Washington DC (UPI) Feb 19, 2006
The Bush administration has bungled the war on terror by relying too much on military force alone, according to a prominent expert, and the war needs to be conducted with new ideas at the political dimension.

Alexis Debat, a senior terrorism analyst at ABC and former adviser for the French Ministry of Defense, said that the war on terror struggles with a question of victory; what will victory look like and what will the terms be?

"The recent results of the Palestinian legislative elections provided a few clues to that answer (of victory), exposing the collective failure of some Western governments to address the terrorist phenomenon as a political phenomenon and placing too much emphasis on the violence and the military dimension of the phenomenon," said Debat, speaking at a Nixon Center panel.

He noted that the failure to address both Hamas and al-Qaida as political organizations is "at the core of the answer to that dilemma of victory."

Another misstep by Western governments includes too much focus of governments on the tools and violent methods of terrorist groups and not on the goals. This point is evident as Department of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continues to emphasize the need to keep weapons of mass destruction away from terrorist groups. To that effect Debat added, "They have generally placed too much confidence in the military option to combat what in a sense is an insurgency. An army can win every battle and still lose the war."

Debat said that the United States relies too heavily on the military option as a way to combat terrorism. "The military option is necessarily aimed at reducing mass, reducing the area, reducing the square footage of the threat," he said. "The problem is terrorism as we know it today does not know mass, does not know area."

He pointed out that the London bombings were conducted by just four people using materials that cost less than $1,000.

Jeffrey White, defense fellow at the Washington Center for Near East Policy, said that military action is important but it's not the whole picture. "You have to deal with the military capabilities and consequences that's the most imminent and direct threat," he said. "You can't just kill terrorists; you have to change the environment from which they come."

Debat said that military measures may succeed in doing just that. Coercive diplomacy may succeed in changing the climate in some Islamic nations.

"The military option is only interesting insofar as to pressure governments as to interdict state sponsorship of terrorism; it doesn't help in the case of Pakistan and Iraq and other places such as Yemen or Saudi Arabia when the organization acts as a retrovirus, the viral entity within the society within the country," said Debat.

Debat suggested the latest frontier in this war for society is Pakistan. Debat spoke about the "Pakistanization" of al-Qaida and the traditional involvement of Pakistani militants with the international terrorist group.

"The organization has filtered through those Pakistani groups and is now reliant on them," said Debat speaking on al-Qaida. "The militant community has evolved in a very interesting way. It's become a little al-Qaida in itself. If you look at a lot of developments of the past several years you'll see that those militant groups have a very important place in al-Qaida."

This is not the first time al-Qaida has been linked or even dependent on Pakistani militants to support their mission, said Debat. "In the '90s most of the volunteers trained in al-Qaida's camps were Pakistani," he said. "Beginning in '97, '98, '99 the trainers were Pakistani. The Pakistanization of al-Qaida was very strong back then."

Debat explained that "Al- Qaida has roots not only in the militant community but in the mainstream community in Pakistan." He spoke of al-Qaida operatives that were apprehended in safe houses owned or run by local government officials affiliated with Jamait-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious political party. "This holds a very fundamental challenge we're not talking about just deep roots, we're talking about the main Pakistani society and political community."

The United States faces unstable public opinion in Pakistan. "In specific cases we can do a great deal of harm or a great deal of good," said White about Pakistan. "Our efforts to deal with the earthquake went a long way in shaping positive attitudes toward the United States." But violent protests against the West over an offensive political cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed have undone the positive image of the United States. "Such cases suggest how tricky this is and how quickly the tide can turn," said White.

Debat believes that evidence suggests al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden spends part of the year hiding in Pakistan. He also said that the Pakistani militant community has acted as a subcontractor of al-Qaida in several of its operations, including an assassination attempt on Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and the July 2005 bombings in London.

Debat suggested the use of other tools in the war on terror, tools that address the politically pervasive nature of terrorist groups in Islamic societies. Peer-to-peer diplomacy where civil societies exchange ideas offers a way for public diplomacy to combat the influence of terrorist groups like al-Qaida, "It is enormously important that the American civil society be conscious of its role," he said.

White agreed. "The real issue is: how do you deal with the population that generates people who willingly participate in terrorism?" he said. "Changing the political and social culture is much harder than conducting military operations."

Debat also stressed that controlling fear that is instilled in society by the threats of global terrorism is not a focus of the U.S. government and should be. "Not a lot of emphasis is put on controlling the effects of terrorism, because if terrorism cannot be avoided maybe we should educate the American public on what terrorism is, on what it means," said Debat.

"Maybe we should make sure that the effects of terrorism on our society are under out control. It is not terrorism, if we are not terrorized."

Source: United Press International