War for war

Last winter it was Peshawar, this winter it is Paris. Last winter it was innocent school children, this winter it was the innocent public out for entertainment. Last winter it was intelligence failure in a country that is blamed for not doing enough against terrorism, this winter it was political failure for a country whose president happened to be part of the public watching that fatal football match. The response in Pakistan? Attack the hideouts of terrorists in Waziristan. The response in Paris? Attack hideouts in Syria. Hundreds of innocent lives lost and thousands of family members almost dying with grief is something that makes most eyes moist and many hearts heavy for a long time to come. The desire to kill and exterminate anybody and anything remotely connected with these incidents is duly justified. However, the question is: is that really effective in achieving the goal of eliminating terrorism?
The tragedy of Paris is a reminder of how terror has expanded and multiplied despite the war on terrorism that we have witnessed post-9/11. No subject has been debated more, researched more and focused on more in the last one-and-a-half decade than terrorism. World powers along with their allies have put together their best sources and resources to counter this menace yet it has increased in scale, depth and frequency.
France itself has a history of attacks that have multiplied over a period of time. The Algerian independence driven bomb attack in 1961 on a train was the most recent in memory. In the 1990s, Algerian insurgents called the Armed Islamic Group were responsible for an Air France hijacking and two bombings on Paris trains. A series of gun attacks in March 2012 targeting French soldiers and Jewish civilians came to be known as the Toulouse and Montauban shootings. Three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren were killed. In January this year, at least 12 people were killed by gunmen who opened fire in the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. This alone is an indication that whatever the world and Paris have done to combat terrorism has been ineffective and needs a review and redo.
Compare the last attack on the World Trade Centre by al Qaeda on 9/11 and the war on Iraq and Afghanistan thereafter. The Taliban became the most popular brand of terror and Osama bin Laden the man who turned into a monster after the US/Russia conflict in Afghanistan. After 15 years, the three countries affected by this conflict — Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan — are still facing terror bombings, have ruined economies and are hotbeds of resentment against the west. The US has withdrawn troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and is now desperate to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table in Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan. The effectiveness of operations in Iraq is evidenced by the fact that the UK and US now admit that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the war was the result of “some ill-informed and ill-advised policy making”.
Is this admission to such destruction enough for those millions who were killed in this war? Is this confession enough to absolve the west of its perception of Islamophobia? Is this realisation that a whole country was blown to bits and generations wiped off not going to have its repercussions? Well, it has had serious repercussions and these are in the shape of the birth of originally Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). ISI was formed in reaction to the US backed Shia government of Al Maliki and the alienation of Sunnis in the country in 2004. As the war in Iraq raged so did the jihadi narrative of IS. In 2012, as the Syrian conflict started, the organisation expanded to establish itself in Syria and was rebranded as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). With the Charlie Hebdo killings it relabelled itself as Islamic State (IS), with a global mission.
It is not hard to assess from this analysis that whatever policies, strategies and actions the world has taken to suppress terrorism, it has in fact fuelled it to become bigger and stronger. The names may change and there may be temporary spurts of peace but they keep on coming back with ever more effective ways of defeating whatever intelligence or war skills that the world possesses. Does that mean that world powers should not hound and beat down terrorism? Does that mean criminals of this brutal nature should not be hounded and punished? No, it only means that focusing on the effect and not focusing on the cause will always result in making the cause so powerful that it will out power the terrorism annihilating the power resources of the world.
After 9/11 there have been so many studies that have proposed a multipronged approach. While you punish the terrorist, you focus on causes of terrorism and uprooting them. The main reasons for terrorism to rise are deprivation, alienation, occupation and imposition. Wherever there is perceived inequity and injustice, rebellion will be inevitable. All studies have revealed that without strategies of inclusion, engagement, education, participation and development, no rebellion in the world has been suppressed. The question thus is how much time, resources and effort have been spent on engagement strategies compared to destruction strategies? The answer is pretty simple: compared to spending on war it may be at best 90/10. The next question is: has this ratio borne fruits in making this world more secure and safe? The answer is no. World insecurity has increased exponentially.
The Paris bombing has Algerian, Moroccan and Belgian origin French involved but President Hollande’s first reaction is 20 bombs on Syria. This is almost déjà vu. The names have changed from Afghanistan to Syria and from al Qaeda to IS but the game of power versus power and war versus war remains the same. A question to ponder: while a terrorist kills people on brainwashed misinformation and ignorance, what do you call Tony Blair after confessing that it was misinformation and ignorance of the right facts that caused millions to die and decay in Iraq? If this is not a war crime and not punishable then what is? It is this perceived discrimination that spirals and fuels the unbeatable rise in rebels with a cause.

The writer is director communications of the PTI in Punjab, an analyst and a columnist. She can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com