The widening scope
of
modern terrorism

Contributing Editor Dr SHIREEN M MAZARI
does an in-depth analysis of the extent and
parameters of the growing menace

There are many questions surrounding all the developments so far, and many conjectures, but within the context of terrorism, the US has widened the scope of this activity in global international relations.

Here one is referring to terror as "the use or threat of use of violence against small numbers to put large numbers in fear". So fear is manipulated and terror is used to affect political behaviour. Traditionally, the systematic use of such terror - as opposed to a pathological use of terror-has been associated as an essential tactic of urban guerrilla warfare. As the main proponent of urban guerrilla warfare, Brazilian Carlos Marighella, explained the purpose behind terrorism:

It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the political situations of the country into a military situation-that will alienate the masses who from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and thus blame them for the state of things.

The idea here being that even if you are not strong enough to bring about the change you desire yourself, you can succeed, through terrorism, in producing a polarisation of political forces so that the situation cannot be untangled so easily. There can be an erosion of consensus, a hardening of the political battlelines and an official backlash that is too severe and indiscriminate. One has only to look at developments in Karachi over the last so many years to see how this works in practice.

But traditionally, such terrorism - that Chalmers Johnson defined as a political, goal-oriented action involving the use or threat of extraordinary violence, performed for psychological rather than material effect, and the victims of which are symbolic rather than instrumental-has been an ideal strategy of the weak in their desire to become effective participants at the national or/and global levels. The victims are only relevant in so far as their perishing leads to the target reacting to the news of their destruction.

Within this framework of terrorism, the US has expanded the use of terrorism to include terror by status quo major powers as well-with the US leading the way. There were the US bombings of Libya where the intention was to terrorise the Libyan people into ridding themselves of their leader Gaddafi. Again, in 1984 the CIA had produced and distributed a Manual del Combatant por La Libertad (Freedom Fighter’s Manual) amongst the Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista forces.

Now the present missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan are yet another act of state terror by the US. This is in direct contradiction to the stated US policy of opposing terrorism. The US has also made much of trying to isolate states that it sees as harboring terrorists. So why has the US chosen to become one of those states that practice terrorism beyond its national frontiers?

To begin with, the US knows that the present global environment does not lend support for conventional warfare. Even the Gulf War, for which the US was able to get UN cover and support, was entered into reluctantly by US allies. With economic globalisation, countries are loathe to interrupt their their economic penetration and activities because of a conventional war. Then there are the increasing costs of conventional warfare-in time and material. Add to this the internationalisation of ideologies and non-governmental interaction and in many instances national borders become irrelevant to political movements. That is why one seas groups based in one continent carrying out their activities in other continents. And there is also a greater internationalisation of membership of such "terrorist" groups.

Finally, the overkill of modern weapons, especially nuclear weapons, and the high cost of elaborate conventional weapon systems and their logistics makes warfare in the conventional sense a cumbersome activity.

For all these reasons, states are having to respond in kind. Warfare now is not the traditional activity of a declaration of war, conduct of military action according to certain accepted norms and a formal cessation of hostilities one way or another. Now, the nature of war is more multidimensional with states and groups investing more in efforts to destabilise the enemy’s societies - including support for dissident movements - that is, a growing focus on unconventional warfare and terrorism.

It is within this frame work that the latest US missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan must be understood. If one goes back a bit and examines the developments since the bombings of the US embassies on the African continent, one can see how the US has used these bombings to achieve a number of related objectives. One such objective has been to again link Pakistan with the whole issue of "Islamic fundamentalism" and terrorism. This would undermine Pakistan’s global standing and weaken the psychological ascendancy achieved in the wake of its nuclear tests. Pakistan, as usual, was easy prey, given the mind-set of its ruling elite. It took what I refer to as the Sadiq bait and claimed boisterously how it had apprehended a suspect of the bombings at Karachi airport. Given the manner in which this "suspect" has been ‘revealing all’, since being banded over to the Americans and Kenyans, about his links to Osama and Islamic Jehad groups-singing almost without much prompting - it is clear that he was set up. the reason? To provide the US an opportunity to get at these groups and thereby satisfy US public opinion and morale in the aftermath of the bombings. After all, Muslims are the ideal suspects to identify - regardless of the reality (remember the Oklahoma blast?).

And from then on there has been no turning back for the US in its use of state terror to implement its external policy objectives. The irony is that the Taliban are very much a US Frankenstein having been covertly supported by the US.

But coming back to the latest missile action by the US, it was a classic act of state terror. And the interlinkages between US policy objectives and third party objectives in this particular instance reflect the intricacies, nuances and multidimensionality of modern war. For instance, just examine US objectives in relation to Pakistan. The US has two clear objectives in its latest military adventure: One, to undermine Pakistan’s global standing-especially in the wake of its nuclear tests. Pakistan had proven to the world that it was a mature, responsible state which nuclear - tested only as a last resort and which continued to explain the tests within its severe security compulsions-as opposed to India which was now being seen as a globally ambitious power wanting to use its nuclear status to gain access to great power status within the international order.

Linked to this had been the successful global projection of India’s Hindu fundamentalist ideology and growing militarism. In other words, after the Indian nuclear tests India found itself the focus of the West’s fundamentalist bogey. Hysteria about Islamic fundamentalism receded into the background, at least temporarily, as the Hindu fundamentalist nature of the Indian state lay exposed. And, alongside this development’s Zionist fundamentalism. Then came the US embassy bombings and the US reverted back to the bogey of Islamic fundamentalism - something it is more comfortable with. And the opportunity came to put Pakistan once again in the dock. After all, economic pressures, despite their intensity, had failed to bring Pakistan to book on the nuclear issue.

Two, to send a clear signal to Pakistan that its nuclear installations could be wiped out if the US so chose. For this a single missile attack was a necessary demonstration. That the missile that landed in Balochistan was an act compassionate divine intervention, perhaps.

So, now with the US leading the way in what is no more the domain of the weak, that is state terrorism, it can hardly seek to isolate and punish other "terrorist" states. Nor should it be surprised to find its citizens targetted across the globe. And when the major powers resort to terrorism as official policy then terrorism becomes part of the mainstream of global politics. The Clausewitzian theory that "war is the continuation of politics by other means" has been turned on its head: Given the nature of the new unconventional warfare, politics economics, psychological warfare and all other state activities that reflect and element of force and terror are "the continuation of war by other means". Such a war knows no borders and make3 no distinctions between war fronts and rear areas - and worst of all it makes no difference between combatants and noncombatants. It is this that makes such wars the scourge of the future-rather than nuclear weapons. l