by Eugene Kogan
Norwich Bulletin
July 21, 2005
‘You’ll never forget 9/11, we’ll never forget this” said a British doctor to an American journalist in the wake of the July 7 London terror attacks, which claimed the lives of 56 and injured 700 people. If atrocities such as these are to be prevented, people in Western countries must learn tough lessons from these tragedies.
Since 9/11, Americans have come to believe terrorism was practiced by extremists from “over there” (Middle East) against innocents “over here.” This misguided belief has been perpetuated by President Bush’s argument the Iraq war is being fought so the United States can confront terrorists there and not on American soil.
The 7/7 bombings shattered these assumptions. First, since the attacks were carried out by British suicide bombers against their fellow British citizens, 7/7 conflated the “here” and the “there.” Suddenly, a passage from the 9/11 Commission Report rang truer than ever: “9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests ‘over there’ should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America ‘over here.’ In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet.” Second, the London terror attacks underscored the chilling fact there were those living among us “here,” in the West, who considered indiscriminate murder of civilians an acceptable tactic.
These Islamist jihadis cannot be dissuaded from terrorism and must be stopped by any means before they do more harm to innocent people. This involves preemptively killing terrorists, infiltrating terrorist cells, opening Islamic charities to greater financial scrutiny to identify those who channel funds to terrorist organizations and ensuring mosques are not used for incitement to jihad.
In order to effectively reduce the threat of terrorism, this “hard” approach must be complemented by a political strategy, aimed at moderate Muslims who reject terrorist violence. It falls onto their shoulders to identify those in their midst who tacitly sympathize with the jihadis and persuade or force them to stop supporting terrorism and to cooperate with authorities in stopping the terrorists, living alongside them.
For moderate Muslims to say “not in our name” (as many did after the London attacks) is crucial — but far from enough. Leaders of Western countries must communicate this message unequivocally to Muslim political, community and religious leaders around the world.
Consensus emerging The good news is that an international consensus is finally emerging on the unacceptability of terrorist violence. The High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, tasked by the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan with formulating reform proposals for the U.N., stated in its report in December that “terrorism is never an acceptable tactic, even for the most defensible causes.”
The panel specifically rejected the oft-used justification for terrorism as a form of anti-occupation struggle (for instance, Palestinian “resistance” against Israeli occupation): “There is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians.”
Leaders of Western countries must encourage moderate Islamic leaders and politicians and ordinary Muslim citizens to use this new international anti-terrorist stance as a starting point for a robust campaign to strip terrorism of the legitimacy it continues to enjoy in parts of their communities and to shame and stop those who support or take part in terrorist violence.
It is said that Islamist terrorism is a Muslim problem for Muslims to solve. While this is true, Western countries must do all in their power to encourage the conversation about religious extremism to take place in the Islamic world.
Bigger stake in dialogue Specifically, we must make clear to moderate Islamic leaders that they have the biggest stake in the success of this dialogue. First, they will be preventing Islam from being used in service of terrorism by the likes of Osama bin Laden. Second, they will be heeding the lessons of present-day Iraq, where foreign terrorists, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are daily killing Muslim and Western civilians alike.
Progress in the war on terrorism will be made when moderate Muslims come to understand their stake in the success of this campaign. The West must help them understand what that stake is.
Kogan, a 2003 magna cum laude graduate and trustee of Connecticut College, is a senior political analyst at Americans for Informed Democracy in New Haven. E-mail: oped_comments@ya hoo.com.
Originally published July 21, 2005
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