The New ‘War on Terror’: New Age Islam’s Selection from Pakistan Press, 18 November 2015
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
18 November 2015
• The New ‘War on Terror’
By Zahid Hussain
• Charity and Dignity
Rafia Zakaria
• After Paris
By Mahir Ali
• The Games They Play With Syria
By S P Seth
• Bombing ISIS Is Not the Solution
By Jonathan Power
Compiled by New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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The New ‘War on Terror’
By Zahid Hussain
Nov 18, 2015
The wave of atrocities over the last two weeks — from the downing of a Russian passenger aircraft to a bloodbath in Beirut and now the massacre in Paris — reveals a new global terror war. The militant Islamic State group also known as IS has now taken its war outside the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria. The Paris carnage has altered the international security paradigm.
One may not agree with the Pope that the attacks are part of a third world war, but the Paris tragedy has certainly lent a global dimension to what has so far been seen mainly as a Middle Eastern civil war; a legacy of the US invasion of Iraq. As one analyst put it: “The contagion has broken out of its confinement.” Predictably, the French response to what it described as an “act of war” is unrelenting.
That is perhaps what IS had intended when it plotted these terrorist attacks: widen the warfront and sharpen the polarisation. Whether it’s the Paris carnage or the blowing up of the Russian airliner in midair it indicates the growing reach of IS and its organisational capacity to carry out such spectacular and coordinated militant attacks. The aerial bombing by the US-led coalition may have stalled the IS advance, but it has failed to drive out the group from the territories under its control.
The militant Islamic State group has much greater appeal for radical Muslims than other such outfits.
With a huge number of foreign fighters, many of them from European countries, joining IS militants, a terrorist attack in their country was predictable. But no one estimated the extent of the group’s capacity to carry out such large-scale mayhem. The identity of the attackers and the mastermind shows that almost all of them were home-grown radicals under the influence of the IS.
Surely most of the foreign fighters have linkages back home, even though they may never return. The cultural alienation and economic marginalisation of the Muslim population, mostly the second and third generation of immigrants, provides a favourable environment for the radical groups to enlist young recruits.
More than Al Qaeda or any other Islamic militant groups, IS with its sizable territorial control in Iraq and Syria and a highly sophisticated propaganda campaign, has much greater appeal for radical Muslims across the world. Its occupation of oil-rich regions provides the group with huge financial resources to continue its activities.
It has also benefited hugely by the ongoing proxy war in the Middle East between the Saudi-led Arab coalition and Iran.
The Saudi financial support for the Sunni militants fighting in Syria has indirectly helped the group. Most of the Saudi-backed groups have joined IS.
The growing tentacles of IS are not confined to the Middle East, but there are clear signs of the group making inroads in this region too. It already has a significant presence in parts of Afghanistan fighting not only the Afghan government forces, but also challenging the Taliban. The two insurgent groups have been engaged in a fierce turf war in eastern Afghanistan.
Most of the Pakistani Taliban and other militant factions fleeing the military operation in the tribal areas have joined IS.
The beheading of Hazara Shia men, women and children in Zabul province last month is another indication of the growing IS influence in the war-torn country.
Some reports suggest that IS fighters in Afghanistan are better armed and have no shortage of funds. A recently aired Al Jazeera TV documentary has shown an IS camp in eastern Afghanistan providing training to children as young as eight years old. The strong presence of the militant group close to our borders in Afghanistan mostly comprising Pakistani fighters must be serious cause of concern to Islamabad, but there is certainly no realisation of the threat.
Although the government as usual is in a state of denial, the footprint of IS is very much visible inside Pakistan too. It is not surprising that some Pakistani Taliban factions and outlawed Sunni sectarian groups like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have pledged allegiance to or support for the group. The investigation of the bus carnage of Ismailis in Karachi early this year shows the attackers were young and highly educated militants with reported links to the IS.
What is most shocking is the return of Islamabad’s Red Mosque as the hub of militancy-linked activities. A year ago, the students of Jamia Hafsa, associated with the mosque, distributed a video appeal to the IS Chief Abubakar Al Baghdadi asking for his help.
After a brief lull, Maulana Abdul Aziz, the head cleric, is back in action resuming his vitriolic sermons despite an apparent ban against him. He has lately held a rally in support of his demand for the enforcement of Sharia. But no action has been taken against him or his followers for openly supporting IS.
While the interior and foreign ministries keep denying the existence of IS in the country, the Balochistan government has expressed its concern over the reported recruitment by the militant group in the province. Pakistanis reportedly form a sizeable contingent of the foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria.
According to a top police officer, who earlier served in Balochistan, it was the Saudis who first started recruitment in the province to fight along with the Sunni groups in Syria. But most of them later joined IS, which they apparently found ideologically more appealing. One wonders why the federal government overlooked this recruitment. It would not even be surprising if this recruitment had the approval of the government or the intelligence agencies. It is a very dangerous game that threatens our own security.
What happened in Paris and Beirut must come as a wake-up call for our government and security agencies. A weak state in a perpetual state of denial provides ideal conditions for militant groups to operate in. The threat is much more serious with the rising influence of IS across the border in Afghanistan and its footprint appearing in the country’s capital too. We must act now before it is too late.
dawn.com/news/1220415/the-new-war-on-terror
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Charity and Dignity
By Rafia Zakaria
November 18, 2015
A STAGGERING number of crises plague our world as the dark last days of 2015 approach. Refugees fleeing war and instability and hopelessness perish on many of the world’s seas, terror attacks take down people from Maiduguri in Nigeria to Paris in France to Peshawar in Pakistan. Just a few weeks ago, an earthquake rattled the northern portions of Pakistan; diseases and epidemics stalk other parts, taking lives owing to a lack of resources.
Locally or globally, fundraising campaigns conducted by various charities take the victims of disaster, via television and computer screens, into the homes of those who have been spared. When a calamity strikes, these appeals tug at the heartstrings and elicit guilt, and in this way these charities use the power of mass media to collect cash for catastrophe, assumedly providing an opportunity for the lucky to share their fortunes with the unlucky.
A year ago I wrote about the complications within this equation. At the global level, the stereotypes of Africans and South Asians (yes, that includes Pakistanis) that are used in aid appeals paint those in need as helpless and powerless. There are starving children and acid-burned women; there is poverty and there is destitution.
While money for humanitarian causes must be raised, it is not necessary to victimise the sufferers a second time by turning them into a spectacle.
When the appeals are directed at a Western audience, the message is simple: the natives of these places are suffering and destitute; they will never be able to have food or shelter or go to school, and the women and minorities among them will never cease to be tormented. When the general helplessness of the subjects has been established, a ‘saviour’ — usually white and Western — emerges; the camera zooms in to the ‘help’ that he or she is providing. Then they ask for cash.
To much of the Western audience that consumes these appeals after every humanitarian disaster, they say simply this: if you don’t help, no one will help. The hidden and far more nefarious message is that brown and black people of the world, who are usually the subject of such appeals, lack the intelligence and ability to help themselves. On a macro level, all of them substantiate the premise that the West must save all the rest.
The recipe is so well known that there were, until recently, few critiques of it. One of these was an effort premised upon using social media nominations to gather contenders for the worst forms of stereotyping and poverty pornography. In using this shaming mechanism to call out charity appeals by organisations such as the Red Cross and Save the Children, the emphasis was on the idea that while money for humanitarian causes can and must be raised, it was not necessary to victimise the sufferers a second time by making them a spectacle for everyone else.
With such initiatives, in the last few years some startling improvements can be seen in the way aid appeals are being handled. For example, one such appeal is a fundraising call for Syria made by a group called the White Helmets who undertake rescue work in war-torn Syria. In their appeal, the focus is on a young Syrian man — who is also a rescue worker — and he tells a story of trying to do good in an environment that is highly dangerous. Footage from an actual rescue in which he participated comes on the screen. Rubble from an air strike has buried a baby; rescue workers try desperately to free him. Miraculously, the baby is dug out and emerges unscathed; the infant’s cry is heard by all and there are prayers of thanks.
The commendable thing about the endeavour described is that the aid appeal refuses to demean those for whom money is being collected. It’s a valuable lesson not simply for Western countries, too often eager to anoint themselves as the world’s saviours, but also for Pakistanis and the Muslim world. Islamic charities that are involved in gathering funds for victims of natural disaster in Pakistan or war in Syria are routinely guilty of presenting those who need help in the most undignified manner.
In many cases, footage of family members who are frantic with grief is presented not only without permission of the subjects themselves but often in a manner that may make their very real suffering seem theatrical.
In others, bodies of the dead (of those who can no longer consent or object) are shown as a means of evoking pity and are used as instruments for charity. No thought at all is given to the humanity of those who are supposedly being helped; if you are in need, or aggrieved or struck by catastrophe, it seems you may be deserving of charity but not consideration.
Pakistanis can get annoyed at the fact that people in the West see them and their country as something that needs ‘saving’ by the West. In response, they cite all the great things that they have done, the ways in which they can and do help themselves and negate the stereotype of hapless and uneducated brown hordes awaiting saviours. When it comes to the division between those who give charity and those who need it within Pakistan, however, they are less mindful.
Pakistan’s charitable routinely expect and demand to imprison in webs of obligation and indebtedness those to whom they give. That same callousness reappears when appeals for aid and charity are made via mass or social media. All of it may succeed in collecting money, but it fails to do what is an equally crucial part of the act of giving: recognition of the recipient’s humanity, an avowed respect for their dignity.
dawn.com/news/1220411/charity-and-dignity
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After Paris
By Mahir Ali
November 18, 2015
THE second serious violation of Paris within a year has inevitably prompted a tough, and largely predictable, response.
Sadly, much of it feeds right into what the militant Islamic State group, which promptly claimed responsibility for the outrageous atrocities in the French capital, must have expected.
President François Hollande declared, for instance, that France was at war, and soon afterwards his nation’s jets pounded Raqqa, the Syrian city assumed to be the IS headquarters, purportedly destroying a command centre. That, in turn, prompted questions about why the target, if it had been identified, wasn’t attacked earlier, given that France and its allies, including the United States, have supposedly been bombing IS for months.
The state of emergency in France, which Hollande wants in place for three months, alongside constitutional changes presumably facilitating drastic measures that have hitherto been incompatible with the republic’s legal framework, play right into the hands of those who mock Western liberal democracy as a farce.
There’s little evidence that more bombing will reduce IS’s capacity.
Besides, did the realisation that France was at war, having committed its forces to military action in Syria and Iraq, dawn only when the war came to Paris? Sacré bleu!
Much has been made in recent days of the fact that the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris stirred a far more passionate response internationally than comparable outrages by similarly minded transgressors in Beirut and Baghdad. The question whether some lives matter more than others in the eyes of the world is certainly a valid one.
Part of the answer lies in the old trope of the empire and its periphery, whereby violent encroachments on the imperial centre count for considerably more than transgressions in former colonies. The Middle East, in particular, tends to be viewed as a free-fire zone where dozens of deaths are par for the course rather than cause for alarm. The worst attack on Beirut since the Lebanese civil war, in that discourse, cannot be expected to garner as much concern as the bloodiest episode in Paris since the Nazi occupation.
Suicide attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq — or, for that matter, in Afghanistan or Pakistan — barely register on the Richter scale of international outrage. That is utterly appalling at one level, and almost understandable at another, given that there is all too often precious little in terms of local indignation — which, in turn, invariably reflects habituation rather than apathy.
This is clearly a deeply distressing trend, and one must hope it will diminish rather than be replicated across Europe. A significant condition for that to occur, though, is a recognition on the part of the West that its so-called war on terror has thus far been a disaster, given that its actions and utterances since Sept 11, 2001, have chiefly served to enhance the threat.
The follies in fact go back much farther; not just to open-ended backing for the most reprehensible elements in the jihad against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, but to the even broader trend in the preceding decades towards assuming that fundamentalist Islam could serve as a pro-Western bulwark against communism.
These days, IS tends to be compared with the Soviet Union as an equivalent existential threat, which is absurd on several levels. A force that boasts, at best, tens of thousands of misguided warriors hardly bears comparison with what was the world’s second biggest nuclear power — and, what’s more, neither Soviet-backed subversion nor its western counterpart entailed large-scale random attacks on civilians.
It’s broadly true that Russian president Vladimir Putin enthusiastically embraces some of the least defensible aspects of the Soviet past while largely ignoring its redeeming features, but his initiative for a diplomatic settlement in Syria, partially endorsed by Barack Obama at the Group of 20 summit in Turkey, may indeed point towards the least painful route out of an imbroglio that has tested the limits of Western military efficacy.
There is little evidence to support Hollande’s apparent belief that more bombing will reduce IS’s capacity to perpetrate horrors abroad. If anything, attempts to inflict greater pain on the Salafist outfit may well produce the opposite effect, given that IS already seems determined to attack all its adversaries, from the UK to Russia, on their home ground.
Regardless of whether the coordinated, Mumbai-like plot to wreak mayhem in Paris was incubated in Syria or Belgium, or a bit of both, it is essential that the danger must be combated. It is equally important, though, that this must be done in a way that does not offer succour to the psychopaths, either by effectively endorsing their self-ordained status as warriors, or by depleting the very freedoms that they are believed to murderously resent.
It ought to have registered hundreds of years ago that crusades and jihads feed upon each other. It’s a monumental tragedy that we’re still searching for alternatives in the 21st century, but the need to locate one has rarely been greater or more urgent.
dawn.com/news/1220402/after-paris
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The Games They Play With Syria
By S P Seth
November 18, 2015
Syria remains a blighted country. However, a recent international conference in Vienna (and its follow up) has created some momentum that might create a framework, over time, for a peaceful resolution. That, at least, is the hope nurtured by some observers. The situation in Syria is such that nobody can predict with any confidence what might happen next. The hope from the Vienna conference is derived from the fact that it was the most representative meeting of external powers with involvement in the Syrian theatre, some of them at odds with each other and pursuing conflicting agendas. For instance, Iran was a participant, for the first time, in any international gathering on Syria. This is an important recognition of its pivotal role in Syria where it is a major supporter, economically, politically and militarily, of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The nuclear deal with Iran became a precursor to its possible role as a facilitator in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. It would have been inconceivable, only a short time ago, to see both Saudi Arabia and Iran in an international conference on Syria, as one of Riyadh’s major goals in Middle Eastern politics is to keep Iran out as a pariah. It worked hard, unsuccessfully though, to prevent the nuclear deal between the US and Iran. And it has also not been successful in keeping Iran out of the Vienna conference, which could both be a plus and a minus. It is a plus because it is difficult to envisage any progress in Syria without Iranian engagement and it could be a minus if Riyadh were to simply play a wrecking role by demanding the removal of the Bashar al-Assad regime as a pre-condition, as well as the removal of foreign fighters (from Iran) and the Hezbollah militants.
At another, almost parallel conference, in Bahrain’s capital, Manama, of mostly western and Arab officials, Saudi Arabia launched a counter offensive of sorts, which might wreck international dialogue through the Vienna route. At the Manama Dialogue Security Conference in Bahrain, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir set forth Riyadh’s position. And, not surprisingly, he reportedly said that the timing of Assad’s departure and withdrawal of foreign fighters (from Iran and Syria) remained the main sticking points to finding a lasting solution to the civil war in Syria. In his way of putting it, Islamic State (IS), al Nusra and other militant groups that are the enemies of both the Assad regime and the US-led coalition against IS, might seem benign. Saudi weapons and aid for its favoured jihadists/rebels is for a good cause.
It would even appear that the international conference in Vienna and its follow up will be used to put enormous pressure on Iran and Russia to ditch Assad, making it sound like it would be in Moscow’s own interest. Iran, though, is unlikely to waver in support of Assad. Russia might buckle at some point, which seems to be the strategy. And this is because, first, Russia cannot sustain its military intervention because of the heavy costs involved. And, second, it would have to consider at some point that its deeper involvement in a conflict, which has strong sectarian elements (Sunni versus Shia), will put it on the wrong side of the Sunni Muslim world.
Antony Blinken, the US deputy secretary of state, highlighted the problems that Russia might face if it continued its military involvement in Syria. He reportedly told the security conference in Bahrain, “Russia cannot afford to sustain its military onslaught against everyone opposed to Assad’s brutal rule. The costs will mount every day in economic, political and security terms but at best only to prevent Assad from losing.” And he predicted a “quagmire” that gets Russia deeper alongside Iran, and Hezbollah and, in the process, alienating Sunni Muslims. In other words, it is in Russia’s own interest to work with the US-led coalition, comprising Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies.
The problem though is that Moscow does not see it that way because the simple removal of Assad will not solve the problem. Moscow has made it clear that its support of Assad is not absolute and not a matter of principle. A spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry recently made it clear that they feared that another regime change in the Middle East “could simply turn the whole region into a large black hole”. In other words, Moscow’s support for the regime in Damascus is pragmatic in terms of the realities of the situation.
The US-supported anti-Assad elements do not have much sway in the country and those vetted and trained by the US have not mattered much anyway. The US has now abandoned that programme. It is now reportedly doling out more cash to the opposition, pledging another $ 100 million in aid that will take the amount to $ 500 million since 2012. These funds are supposed to help local and provincial councils, emergency services and so on. How these funds will be disbursed is not clear. At another level, for the first time, the US is making the commitment of a small contingent of about 50 special operations commandos to help the mainly Kurdish fighters in northern Syria against IS. This could be the thin edge of the mission creep, which has happened in other theatres.
The US might be right that Russia’s deepening engagement in Syria will land it into a “quagmire” as it did the US in other areas. But unless Russia, the US and its allies come to a common understanding of their mission, which is to push back and eventually defeat IS, they might all end up in a quagmire. The recent downing of a Russian civilian plane in Sinai and the terrorist attacks in Paris clearly underline the need for a united international front against IS.
If the forum of the international conference in Vienna is used to put pressure on Russia to get rid of Assad, this most likely will fail, at least for quite some time. Russia clearly sees that the Assad regime is the only functional entity in the country. And to dump it in the absence of a clearly discernible and functional alternative is to make things even worse. As for Iran and Hezbollah, they seem to have come to the conclusion for quite some time that Assad’s Syria is their frontline against IS and other militant groups.
dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/18-Nov-2015/the-games-they-play-with-syria
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Bombing ISIS Is Not the Solution
By Jonathan Power
November 18, 2015
The Barbarians are not at the gate. There is no need for a rush to war as the French president, Francois Hollande, suggests. The Americans did this after 9/11 and raced into Afghanistan with the intention of eliminating al Qaeda. They failed and they are still in Afghanistan, the US’ longest war ever. They have become bogged down in fighting Afghan movements, including the Taliban. Some of the Taliban may have hosted al Qaeda for a while but accounts suggest they were not happy about it. They certainly do not today.
In Harvard University’s magazine, International Security, Professors Alexander Downs and Jonathan Monten report they have studied over 1,000 military interventions over many years. It is very rare that there has been success. Bogged down, bogged down. These two words should resonate in every western (and Russian) leader’s head. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Libya (also Russia in Afghanistan and in Chechnya). There is such a long list of failures. Give one good reason why it should be different this time.
Think of the innocents: 200,000 civilians died in Iraq because of a war that the US and UK started. In Paris, in comparison, 130 have died. Already many more innocents than that have been killed in Syria/Iraq by US, French, Russian and Gulf States’ warplanes. And there will be tens of thousands more if the bombardment is continued. Mea culpa.
Let us be careful about conflating the issue of Assad’s civil war with the issue of Islamic State (IS). What triggered Syria’s civil war had nothing to do with what triggered IS. The two began for very different reasons. IS is al Qaeda, metastasising into a more virulent form. Its main raison d’être is not to defeat the Shia-supported Assad, although that would be welcome. It is to drive the western infidel and his ‘stooges’ in Muslim countries out of the Middle East and create its own ‘pure’ Islamic caliphate. It is to revenge itself upon the west for centuries of its ‘terrorism’- the crusades, the post World War I seizure of territory, the one-sided exploitation of oil, the creation of Israel on Islamic soil and the subsequent Israeli take-over of much of the Palestinians’ land.
The backbone of IS comes mainly from Iraq. They are ex-Baathist soldiers who supported Saddam Hussein and who feel that the US-imposed Shia government in Iraq has discounted them. Say it loud: President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair unleashed the demons that have made IS the formidable enemy of the west and Russia (and soon perhaps China) that it is today.
Is there an alternative way of defeating or at least containing IS? There are other ways apart from war to cut IS down to size: sanctions that make sure funding is cut off and its leaders and supporters cannot travel, use banks or money transfer businesses. Private donors to IS in Saudi Arabia and Qatar must be arrested. Cancel the passports of those jihadists resident in the west and Russia who have gone off to fight. Take away the European and US citizenships of those who present a terrorism risk and have dual citizenship. They will have to pay the price of never seeing their families again. Enhance the defensive deployment of Iraqi troops to protect the revenue-giving oil wells.
At the same time the west needs to continue with its so far successful efforts to stymie terrorist activity back home. However, it must not work itself up and exaggerate its vulnerability. Until Paris there had not been a major terrorist outrage in the west since 9/11, the bus bombing in London in 2005 and the train bombing in Madrid in 2006. Encircle IS and squeeze. Encourage the towns they occupy (Raqqa for instance, which France is now bombing) to empty out and their native inhabitants to head for refuge in Turkey, Jordan or Iran. Then deny the IS militants — once they move into a town — food, water, phones, electricity and medical supplies.
Something not too dissimilar was carried out by the Russians in their war against Napoleon. Muscovites were ordered to abandon the city. From that moment on, lacking fresh supplies and shelter, Napoleon’s campaign went downhill. The refugee camps must be made more enticing. At present, they are cutting their budgets because of the lack of funding from UN members. Funds for food, clinics and schools in the camps have, over the last year, been seriously cut back. If people are to leave behind their towns, work, schools and health services they need good facilities in the refugee camps. Within a couple of months these new refugees should be able to go home. If the IS invaders have no water, food, phones, medical supplies and electricity they will not last long.
This is what is called lateral thinking or thinking outside the box. This, indeed, is how we need to think.
dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/18-Nov-2015/bombing-is-is-not-the-solution
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