Terrorism over the World - Essay Example

149664 After probably 1990, no other word ruled the world as did terrorism. The distant terrorism in the form of guerrilla warfare in places like Palestine or South America, and Sri Lanka was comparatively a very small portion of the wider picture that Muslim terrorism has released in recent years, with disastrous effects. Every country is staking all resources under its control to contain, prevent and control the new plague. Nevertheless, it is a fact that prevention and control have not shown great results. Globalisation has raised expectations with information of remotest corners pouring in making every isolated question a world problem today and mankind should be tackling those problems. Instead, governments are busy gearing up defences against faceless terrorism. World had been sceptical about the 'intelligence' which saw things that never existed in Iraq and intelligence failure is considered to be one the main problems in terrorism. It is interesting that highly equipped, well endowed intelligence agencies have miserably failed in areas like Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a practical reason behind it. Western intelligence cannot employ westerners who are stunningly conspicuous and agencies are forced to employ locals. Some of the locals mislead purposely, or due to lack of co-ordination, training, language disabilities, information goes awry. Intelligence agencies have to rely upon them for their sources in alien countries. Failure in collecting relevant, timely and genuine information had been the root cause of many problems, including Iraq Conducting wars on terror in far-flung lands, adjusting to local conditions and weather, making decisions independently in unfamiliar atmosphere as against the abundant knowledge of inhabitants that local terrorists possess, had been not only expensive, but also erroneous, uncertain and at times deplorable. Poverty, deprivation, and thwarted aspirations had been main reasons to respond to the siren song of extremism, though many thinkers negate this assumption. Without containing these problems, controlling extremism cannot be long-lasting. Unless the extreme injustice, deprivation and inequality of fellow human beings are addressed, terrorism cannot be controlled completely. But this could be tackled only through a long drawn plan and definitely impossible to be applied as a yard stick, because the results we need should happen now. The disliking of America and Europe as a result of wrong policies, racism, colonialism, history and economic highhandedness that accumulated for nearly a century and more, has not made the white race exactly popular and even actions taken backed by the best interests are looked down upon with suspicion, hatred and cynicism. Failure in building an international cohesive front against terrorism, ignoring United Nations and sensible voices belonging to leaders of small countries too have additional negative effect. Eliminating the fertile ground upon which terrorism thrives had been impossible even in a country like Pakistan, which is totally under control of US, but works as a vast University for budding terrorists. This shows the futility of trying to contain it in unfriendly countries. Problem areas like Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir, internal problems of Sri Lanka between two ethnicities and ruthless leadership of Prabhakaran, LTTE supreme, Osama and his clout amongst fanatic Muslims, rise of Hamas and Hezbollah, unending extremism in Iraq, all these issues keep smouldering, continuously feeding into terrorism. A miracle could not be expected unless there is a genuine addressing of these issues. It is impossible to ignore the carelessness with which West, especially America, allowed many opportunities to slip through its fingers. Terrorist activities should be deprived of media attention and as long as media creates heroes and role models out of terrorists, it is tough to be eradicated. "To be sure, because terrorism, however local, is by its very nature a world-wide theatrical attraction, it tends to encourage angry and frustrated groups beyond a particular country to undertake similar acts as a way out of their helplessness and alienation," (Cupperman, 1979, p.337). Another controlling area is the money supply that should be frozen from every source immediately. Today the Maoist movement pervading Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and northern parts of India is supplied with money and weapons from China in the hope of spreading Communism. LTTE almost died after assassinating Rajiv Gandhi, because most of its financial sources were frozen. All these terrorism creating organisations should be banned by all governments. Unlike other religions, Islam controls the way of life and thinking process of its followers, without much change in the basic thinking over centuries. Unless Muslim leaders tackle this problem and modernise the religion, by opening fresh air into it, so that some of the ancient customs and compulsions could be prevented from becoming conflicts, fanaticism will go on. Jihad against infidels can change direction during a civil war against another group of Muslims. "But this could change at a time of acute crisis such as a civil war, for the extremists, all Muslims who do not share their convictions are no better, in principle, than the infidels, and the battle against them is still a religious duty" (Laqueur, 2003, p.212) and this continuity shows that there cannot be an immediate end in sight. People fight against encroachment on their liberty and human rights. Balancing counter terrorism with human rights and liberty, freedom had been extremely difficult and this hesitation is made use of by terrorists. The most difficult threat involves nuclear terrorism, and the knowledge that terrorists could neither be prevented nor controlled from building nuclear weapons, use scary 'dirty bombs' etc. is overwhelming. Unless pertaining information on websites are controlled and curbed to some extent, this fear cannot be ignored. it is not easy to plug all information sites. "It is also clear that bin Laden was seeking nuclear explosive materials (plutonium or highly enriched uranium) and know-how for building atomic bombs, and other dangerous nuclear materials for use in "dirty bombs" to spread radioactive contamination with conventional high explosives" http://www.nci.org/nci-nt.htm This gives rise to suspicions like how vulnerable Russian nuclear weapons are and is a theft possible in Pakistan and with the present fanatic approach. It is impossible not to wonder how fearsome Iran's nuclear programme could get, or how far North Korea would go. One has to remember that US could not control Pakistan from marketing nuclear information to Iran, North Korea and who knows, who else. International Task force from prevention of Nuclear Weapons has not been particularly successful, but it has warned that "the growing incidence, sophistication and lethality of conventional forms of terrorism," as well as the vulnerability of nuclear power and research reactors to sabotage and of weapons-usable nuclear materials to theft" http://www.nci.org/nci-nt.htm Some of the information is directly feeding into terrorism and such information, especially about vulnerability of nuclear sites is like playing into the hands of terrorists, giving them more ideas and possibilities. Explaining every action detail planned against terrorism to media is equally thoughtless. The militant Islamic groups of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangla Desh had been beyond curbing, while training camps continue to operate in full view. India had been a victim of it even before the West. State sponsorship by rogue nations continue due to UN failure. One shining example of combating terrorism is the overthrowing of Taliban from Afghanistan, even though questions about its effectiveness remain unanswered. Peace keeping and joint training operations in these areas are definitely curbing terrorist financing and weapon trafficking, but plugging all avenues had been impossible. Difficult terrains have proved unconquerable to western forces while local inhabitants use several routes to the same terrain. Image of America, its immature foreign policy of arrogance or its President, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharaib, victimization and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, indiscriminate bombing of Hindu Kush, and recent unbelievably crude killing of Saddam Hussein, mindless attacks from Israel that popularised Hezbollah, etc. escalate terrorism instead of pacifying it. Apart from 9/11 attack on United States by Al Qaeda, there were many noteworthy terrorist incidents: Munich Massacre - 1972: During summer Olympics in Munich, Israeli players were taken hostage and later killed by Black September, a Palestinian organisation which eventually killed 11 athletes and one German police officer. Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi: 1991: He was killed by a suicide bomber belonging to LTTE of Sri Lanka at Perambadur, Tamil Nadu, in India. The idea was to prevent him from becoming Indian Prime Minister once again, in retaliation of helping Sri Lankan Government to curb the Tamil menace. Jaish-e-Mohammad: In its venture to take Kashmir for Pakistan, it has unleashed a reign of terror, killed Daniel Pearl, American journalist, caused many attacks on India, including bombing of Indian Parliament, and now target Indian political leaders and religious sites. Lashkar-e-Tayyiba: Pakistan based terrorists, targeting Indian security forces and Indian leadership. Also regularly carry out terrorist attacks in Kashmir and other places. Madrid train bombings of 2004 that killed 191 people and wounded beyond 2000 by a combined group of Muslim extremists helped by non-Muslims. Mumbai train bombings of 2006, with 11 simultaneous synchronised explosions in different sites, with 209 dead and 714 injured. Bombay also witnessed a major co-ordinated bomb attack in 1993, perhaps one of the first signs of Muslim terrorism, State sponsored terrorism, religious justification with ethnic and national bases, multiple motivations and ideologies have made the world an unsafe place. As part of counterterrorism, security has increased, intelligence gathering, detention and prevention have been regulated, finance is provided, and repression of violent groups is done with retaliation or punishment, because lack of it can escalate terrorism. "Failure to retaliate may hold costs for states suffering from terrorist attacks. The inability or unwillingness to strike back might encourage terrorists to continue attacks just as retaliation or the threat to retaliate might convince them to cease their operations in at least a specific locale," (Lutz, 2004, p.232). In spite of all measures, preventing and controlling terrorism, even in a country like Britain had been impossible till now. Terrorism has not shown any signs of diminishing. Actually in places like Iraq they are fuelled every day and American army is a mute spectator. As there had always been a certain Western highhandedness, thriving on whipped up religious euphoria had never been easier. Terrorism has to erase itself and only under such circumstances, total prevention and control could exist. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Gilbert, Paul (2003), New Terror, New Wars, Edinburgh University Press. 2. Kupperman, Robert and Trent Darrell (1979), Terrorism, Hoover University Press, Stanford. 3. Laqueur, Walter (2003), No End to Wear, Terrorism in the Twenty first century, Continuum, London. 4. Lutz, James M. and Brenda J. Lutz (2004), Global Terrorism, Routledge, London. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.nci.org/nci-nt.htm Read More