Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

War on Terror

29 Oct 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com

Talking to Taliban

The apprehension that Islamist terrorists could cobble together or otherwise acquire a dirty nuclear device, has lent a particularly lethal dimension to the terrorist threat. The argument that this can be prevented reflects wishful thinking, as does the claim that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will remember what happened post-9/11 and refrain from further strikes against the US. The fact that strikes and attempted strikes continue, makes nonsense of it. One is here talking of people who are not guided by rational military logic and to whom the hereafter and not the present world matters. They court martyrdom and would not hesitate to take the whole world with them if that comes to that. -- Hiranmay Karlekar

Talking to Taliban

By Hiranmay Karlekar US’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan augurs ill for all. According to reports, talks are underway between the Karzai regime in Afghanistan and the Taliban and the Americans and their Nato allies have blessed it. Washington would do well to ponder the consequences of its action at a time when it and its allies are widely perceived to be desperate to quit Afghanistan and are only looking for a face-saving device. If they are indeed doing so, their withdrawal will mean defeat and the abandonment of their declared goal, stated by President Barack Obama himself, of wrecking the terror infrastructure of the Al Qaeda and forcing the Taliban to break with the latter. This, in turn, will hugely boost the morale and standing of both organisations in the same way that Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, completed on February 15, 1989, did. Both felt and claimed that they had defeated a dreaded super power and were ready to take on the world. The morale of Islamist fundamentalists the world over soared and money and volunteers poured in. They felt they could take on the US and attempts like those on the World Trade Centre on February 26, 1993, and US’s embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998 followed. The latter was again followed by the suicide bomb attack on USS Cole, an American destroyer, off Aden on October 12, 2000. Then, of course, came 9/11. The boost to the morale and standing of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda will be even greater this time if the US and its allies are believed to have been defeated. It will be perceived that both organisations could survive the US-led offensive, that followed 9/11, and ousted them from Afghanistan, stage a comeback and emerge victorious. The message would ring loud and clear, that they represent the wave of the future and win the world through jihad. This in turn will further accelerate the spread the world over, of the radical, reductionist Islam they stand for, seriously threatening moderate Muslims and regimes. A massive unconventional war against the US, through a combination of insurgency and terrorism, will follow. The consequences would be much more serious this time because the terror network of Al Qaeda and the Taliban has spread to many parts of the world. Yemen, where the Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula was formed in 2009, has slowly emerged over the years as a hotbed of Islamist terrorism, defying its Government’s efforts to curb it. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up the Northwestern Airlines’ Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, received both his ideological inspiration and training in manufacturing bombs, there. It is not just Yemen. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are gaining in strength in Somalia, where the forces of the African Union are finding the going increasingly difficult against them, Kenya and Nigeria. Besides, there has been a remarkable expansion in Islamist terrorist infrastructure in Europe and even in the US itself. The argument that the US can destroy at least the part of it on their soil and become fortress America protected by an impregnable security wall does not wash. Every security wall, recent examples have shown, can be breached. Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up Northwestern Airlines’ Flight 253 failed because the explosive device failed to go off and not because its smuggling on board could be prevented. Similarly the attempt to set off a car van bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010 failed because the explosive device started smoking and not because it could not be placed. The apprehension that Islamist terrorists could cobble together or otherwise acquire a dirty nuclear device, has lent a particularly lethal dimension to the terrorist threat. The argument that this can be prevented reflects wishful thinking, as does the claim that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will remember what happened post-9/11 and refrain from further strikes against the US. The fact that strikes and attempted strikes continue, makes nonsense of it. One is here talking of people who are not guided by rational military logic and to whom the hereafter and not the present world matters. They court martyrdom and would not hesitate to take the whole world with them if that comes to that. Source: Daily Pioneer URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=3599