Terror Takes On Many Forms

After 9-11, the Bush Administration declared a "war on terror". Since terror comes in many forms and is in many places, this is perhaps the most open-ended war in human history. Well, in theory, anyway. For this is not a war on any old terror- this is a war on so-called "Islamic" terror. The idea is, there's all these rabid extremist Muslims out there who hate "our freedoms", and so we must fight them.

However, a recent poll of Canadians suggests that many Canadians have at least an inkling of the truth. However deplorable their ideologies may be, the Muslim "extremists" have been resisting foreign domination, and this is why they have popular support in many countries. 9-11 was clearly a response to American interference in the Middle East.

We followed the Americans into Afghanistan not long after the Twin Towers fell, and we said that we would help rebuild Afghanistan following the toppling of the Taliban. A few years later, there seems to have been little rebuilding, and we are now focused on fighting a war of counterinsurgency. The Taliban were a nasty lot to be sure. Few would mourn the demise of that regime. But a few years later, they're the resisters of foreign occupation, and it's looking like there's no way to defeat them by force of arms. We seem to have stumbled into the same trap as the Soviets did, and the British before them.

The NDP have called for our troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. I have mixed feelings about that. I certainly don't want to leave Afghanistan to chaos and/or rule by the Taliban. On the other hand, the Soviets could have argued the same thing, and they had a point- after they left, Afghanistan was left to chaos, then to Taliban rule. But they could hardly continue fighting local resistance forces ("Muslim extremists", don't you know) indefinately. At a certain point, they had to give up and go home. If we cannot defeat the Taliban militarily, then the only thing that remains is to determine the conditions under which we will withdraw. Will Afghanistan be better off if we withdraw later rather than sooner? I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect that if we carry on there like we have been, things will just be worse when we at last decide to leave.

Peter MacKay said that we can't be neutral in the fight against Muslim extremism. No doubt he thinks that this is a very principled position. Yet in the name of standing against Muslim extremism, it seems that many other forms of iniquity are to be permitted. I remember the statement he made when Israel started attacking Lebanon. This statement went through a number of twists, turns and spins to avoid mentioning what it was in reaction to- Israel's attack. Instead, it held Hezbollah responsible for the humanitarian crisis which would result from the situation- who or what would cause this crisis was not mentioned. Israel was not mentioned once. It was one of the most torturous, intellectually dishonest statements I have ever had the misfortune to hear from our government.

It is rather conveniant to equate "terror" with fanatical Muslims. It is also wrong. I end with a statement British journalist Robert Fisk made from Lebanon, during that war, when President Bush was fulminating against "Islamic fascism":

So I sat on the carpet in my living room and watched all these heavily armed chaps at Heathrow protecting the British people from annihilation and then on came President George Bush to tell us that we were all fighting "Islamic fascism". There were more thumps in the darkness across Beirut where an awful lot of people are suffering from terror - although I can assure George W that while the pilots of the aircraft dropping bombs across the city in which I have lived for 30 years may or may not be fascists, they are definitely not Islamic.