Neocons don't understand terrorist threat

A BuzzFlash Interview with Jason Burke, Author of "Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror"

JASON BURKE: I think the term al-Qaeda, particularly now, is of dubious use when trying to describe the phenomenon of contemporary Islami Suni Muslim militancy. Al-Qaeda is commonly perceived to be a tight-knight terrorist organization led by bin Laden. Something that comes close to that description existed in Afghanistan between around 1997 and 2001. That entity no longer exists. What we have now is something far more diverse -- a whole series of groups, cells, and even individuals who are dissimilar in many ways, but are united by certain fundamental ideological ideas, and a particular way of viewing the world. Broadly, if you want or if you need an al-Qaeda as a label, then I think it should be applied to that broad movement, rather than one specific group. I think if you continue to conceive of the threat from militant Islam as coming from one specific group, then attempts to end that threat are likely to be misjudged as a result. And tactics based on this assumption could -- at the very best -- prolong the war against terror or a victorious war against terror, and at the worst could be counter-productive.

However, in terms of the war on terror, I would say that the war against Saddam was an unwelcome diversion that has had strongly negative results overall. I base that on the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of Baghdad’s involvement with September 11th. Nor is there any evidence of any kind of alliance between bin Laden and his close aides, and the Saddam Hussein regime in the years before September the 11th.

The problem with the war in Iraq is that it provides very welcome material for those who argue that America and her allies are fundamentally opposed to any kind of unity and prosperity in the Islamic world. The Islamic militants see their struggle as a defensive one. They believe that they are resisting a tradition of belligerence and aggression by the West that goes back to the Crusades. Unfortunately, attacking -- however justifiably or not -- two Islamic nations in the space of two years, one of which is the cultural heart of many Islamic or many Muslims’ and Arabs’ cultural identity, that clearly is going to provide evidence for those who believe in that world view.

... We’re still struggling to understand what turns a 19-year-old Saudi or a 25-year-old Pakistani, or however-old Egyptian, into a suicide bomber. But fundamentally, it’s a question of how somebody explains things that are wrong in his world. And an easy answer and an attractive answer for many in the Islamic world who are angry at a lack of social opportunity, a lack of professional opportunity, a lack of health care, or, very significantly, the huge disparity between the West and the Islamic world in socioeconomic terms, is to blame it on the Americans and the Israelis.

Now once you’ve got to that stage, and you believe that most of your problems and those of your family and those of your society stem from aggressive policies of others -- namely the West and their proxies -- anything involves aggressive action against you is merely going to confirm you in that view. So what I’m saying is that though military action is often necessary -- it’s often the only thing to do -- it shouldn’t be the default option that is immediately deployed. And if it is deployed, it has to be deployed with a whole battery of other measures that attempt to countermand the negative impact of that military action. And I don’t see that happening.

...You can just go on killing the terrorists as they come up and create more. And the problem will not go away. You may just about, with massive expenditure of effort, keep a lid on it, losing people and spending a lot of money, and causing a lot of continuing damage to interests of everybody globally. But the actual problem will not be solved. So what I’m saying is yes, we need a military component, clearly. But alongside that military component, there has to be a recognition that evil though it may be, this is not blind fanaticism. It’s fanaticism that’s rooted in a whole series of factors. And if it is rooted in those factors, let’s look at those factors and let’s work toward eliminating them.

Then, if you have a complimentary approach with the military -- which undeniably the Americans are very, very good at -- and a whole range of other policies designed to suck the support from the terrorists, we will win. And that’s because 99 percent of Muslims in the world and in the Middle East are decent, kind people with whom we have an awful lot in common. They’re not the "other." They’re not mad, bearded, violent lunatics. They’re people who should be our allies. And that is the greatest strength and the greatest weapon we have in the war on terrorism. And it’s one that is not only not being exploited -- it’s one that’s being almost deliberately thrown away.

The most threatening developing to come out of Saudi Arabia since its creation has been the industrial export of Wahhabi conservative Islam throughout the Islamic world and beyond. It’s very easy for us to ignore because the details of Islamic observance often escape us. But purely because of the funding provided by the Saudi government and quasi-governmental organizations and individuals, a virulently anti-Western, anti-Semitic, intolerant version of Islam has been spread to tens of millions of people who otherwise would not have been exposed to it. And though a direct link to terrorism is necessarily difficult to establish, there is no doubt in my mind that Wahhabist thought and culture is one that creates a very fertile ground for radical Islamic violence, in ways where radical Islamic violence can thrive.

BUZZFLASH: ...The Wahhabi sect of Islam in Saudi Arabia, which is, in Western terms, extremist. And it’s the birthplace of a lot of bin Laden’s Saudi followers. How does one change that? That’s an indigenous religion to Saudi Arabia.

BURKE: Yeah, but it’s not an indigenous religion to half the places to which it’s been exported in the last two decades. And there has been a missionary effort bankrolled by Saudi establishment for foreign and domestic policy reasons, the likes of which the world has not seen for many centuries.

Where there’s previously a moderate, tolerant, open, pluralistic Islam practiced, which is absolutely no threat to the West whatsoever, you are now finding something that is the opposite of all those things. It is extreme. It is ideological. It is viciously intolerant. And it is spreading. And from it stems much of the militant ideology.

EL - The Wahhabi sect of Islam is much like the fundamentalist sect of Christianity in providing breeding grounds for people willing to take extreme actions if their fundamental beliefs are violated. Anti-abortion bombers and shooters come from extreme elements within "religious" dominated groups. Keeping a lid on extremism and promoting dialogue and reasonable tolerance are the democratic values we need to be supporting.