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A SENSE OF ASIA

The purpose of terror is … terror


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By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Sol W. Sanders

November 18, 2005

Nothing so much misses the point as the almost endless speculation by the TV talking heads as to why the Iraqi wing of al-Qaida bombed civilian targets in Amman, Jordan, ending up largely with Arab victims. Demonstrations against the attack [for once the Hussein dynasty and the Palestinians were in the same corner since the decimated bridal party was Palestinian] were seen as a great breakthrough. Finally, the Pollyannas said, the Arabs understand they and not the U.S. and its allies are the main victims of the horror perpetrated in Iraq.

Woaaaa! The problem is one of projection, as the Freudians would say. “The unconscious process or fact of projecting one's fears, feelings, desires, or fantasies on to other persons, things, or situations, in order to avoid recognizing them as one's own and so as to justify one's behaviour.” In our world of Judeo-Christian-Enlightenment, we cannot imagine the logic of inflicting pain and suffering on those dear to us. Therefore, the terrorists must have made a miscalculation – one for which they will pay dearly, it is said..

What is at fault is a complete misunderstanding of reality. The Islamofascists, like their predecessors, believe terror is an effective weapon to establish their supremacy. They know their position as a minority in the Islamic world as well as in the more general theater puts them at a disadvantage. In waging asymmetrical warfare against the Americans – even those benighted European appeasers who have not come to grips with the problem begin to recognize – they set out to terrorize the general population. For if they can frighten the majority so much it will lend no aid and comfort to the Americans, they can manifestly increase their advantage.

Why this simple analysis escapes so many experts is hard to understand. In part, it is because in the post-Korean War world, a world of guerrilla and insurgencies, pseudo-sciences have been created to analyze what common sense would have immediately disentangled. Insurgencies, on the face of it, are based on very particular characteristics of a population, the geography and other parts of the local environment. So-called theories of counterinsurgency are bogus since there are few generalizations one can make which are not fatuous. You can, for example, argue the military should treat the population justly, whatever is meant in the cauldron of war.

But very little connects an urban explosion like the Tupamaros in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the late 1960s and the Moslem Moros who fought the Americans in the southern Philippines in the 1890s and the Vietcong in the Mekong River Delta in the 1960s and the Afghans who fought the Soviets in the 1980s. So it is today in the early 2000s with Iraqi Ba’athists, Arab tribals, Shi’as, Sunnis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen, Chaldeans, in the marshes, in the desert, on the rivers, in Baghdad streets,.

But one thing is common: the insurgents use terror to intimidate the population, to keep it from joining forces in any effort to establish law and order. The more brutal the terror, the more effective. If the victims have strong associations with sectors of the population the terrorists want to intimidate, so much the better.

That’s why just hours ago as this is written Moslem terrorists mowed down civilians as well as three or four Indian security personnel in one of the main markets of Srinigar, the capital of Kashmir. They have been doing it for months, for years. Has it inspired the Kashmiris to rise up in righteous wrath and suppress the insurgency? No, in fact, with more than half a million security personnel in the region, New Delhi cannot bring the violence to an end in no small part because the population is petrified of the terrorists.

When earlier this year the Tamil Tigers [ITTE] — who by the way invented modern suicide bombing, including using women — assassinated a Tamil politician with a reputation for fairness across all Sri Lanka’s many political, racial, and ethnic divides, did it bring an end to violence? Not at all. The ITTE is using the threat of renewed unrestricted terror to blackmail the naďve Norwegian negotiators and their Sri Lankan opponents into accepting their ultimate political goals.

What is axiomatic about terror, then, is the more brutal, the more encompassing, the more indiscriminate, the more its effectiveness at stifling opposition. There will always be those brave individuals who in the face of the ultimate threat will choose to fight. But they are the exception, not the rule among a civilian population without training at arms.

Does it mean then there is no possibility of defeating a terror campaign? Not at all. Superior organization and intelligence can isolate the terrorists and has done so in Malaya and Algeria. But it does require a realistic appraisal of the menace and it requires time and patience.

Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

November 18, 2005

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