Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: La "guerra al terrore" non è una guerra

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/May/05192003/commenta/commenta.asp
Dyer: A 'Statistical' Victory Over Terrorism Cannot Be Achieved
By Gwynne Dyer
    The bomb attacks on foreigners' residential compounds in Riyadh on May
12 were about as surprising as rain in Ireland. There was no surprise in
President Bush's response, either: "The United States will find the killers
and they will learn the meaning of American justice. . . . We will bring
them to justice. Just ask the Taliban." (But don't ask Osama bin Laden, the
actual terrorist leader, because he's still on the loose.)
    It won't be hard for the United States to "find the killers," because
their body parts are scattered around the compounds where they blew
themselves up, but it's a bit late to bring them to any earthly form of
justice. As for punishing those who "sent" them, however, that is a concept
that grows less meaningful with every month that passes. As the United
States government lunges about seeking targets to destroy, its real enemy
becomes ever more insubstantial and hard to locate or attack -- so Bush
attacks countries instead. At least they have fixed addresses.
    Last year the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan and easily
destroyed the Taliban government -- but it didn't get al-Qaida, which just
moved on. This year it attacked Iraq -- and did al-Qaida no harm at all,
because it was never there in the first place. Now U.S. troops are occupying
two conquered Muslim countries (nobody say Vietnam), and al-Qaida is as
strong as ever. Could there be something wrong with this strategy?
    Consider the latest Strategic Survey published by the London-based
International Institute for Strategic Studies. The destruction of al-Qaida's
fixed bases in Afghanistan actually did it a favor, argues the author,
Jonathan Stevenson, forcing "an already decentralized and elusive
trans-national network to become even harder to identify and neutralize.
Thanks to technology and the multinational allure of jihadism, the
Afghanistan camps were [now] unnecessary."
    Operations like the attacks in Bali and Mombasa last autumn are planned
and carried out by local sympathizers who may have little contact with
al-Qaida's leadership: All they need is approval in principle and perhaps
some financial help. "The only physical infrastructure al-Qaida required
[after Afghanistan] were safe houses to assemble bombs and weapons caches,"
said the IISS report. "Otherwise, notebook computers, encryption, the
Internet, multiple passports, and the ease of global transportation enabled
al-Qaida to function as a virtual entity that leveraged local assets --
hence local knowledge -- to full advantage in coordinating attacks in many
fields of jihad."
    In other words: The Islamist terrorists are here to stay, and they
cannot be stamped out by military force. The war on terrorism should be seen
in the same way that we view the often-proclaimed war on crime: merely a
militaristic metaphor for an operation that is really statistical. Nobody
imagines that the war on crime will one day end like a real war, with an
absolute victory where all the criminals come out with their hands up and
then there is no more crime. Success is a matter of keeping the crime rate
down, not eliminating all the criminals.
    Terrorism is exactly the same. As Stella Rimington, former head of
Britain's MI5, said last year: "Terrorism did not begin on September 11 and
it will not end there. . . . The history of terrorism in the 20th century
shows that a war on terrorism cannot be won, unless the causes of terrorism
are eradicated by making the world a place free of grievances, something
that will not happen. Terrorism has proved so effective in catching the
world's attention and even, ultimately, in achieving the terrorists'
objectives, that it will continue to appeal to extremists. However good our
counter measures, some of it will succeed, but it can be made more
difficult."
    The U.S. intelligence services understand all this, too, but it's a hard
sell politically in a country that expects instant solutions and glories in
its military power. To people who have only a hammer, everything looks like
a nail.
    It was not the Central Intelligence Agency that pushed to keep American
troops in Saudi Arabia after 1991, thus creating the original grievance that
brought al-Qaida into existence, but they couldn't get the generals to
listen. It was not the CIA that concocted stories about Saddam Hussein's
fabulous weapons of mass destruction and his fictional links with al-Qaida
as a pretext for conquering Iraq, but they couldn't get the political
ideologues to listen.
    No military victory over terrorism is possible anyway, but it really
does not help to go around manufacturing more grievances.
   -----
   Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are
published in 45 countries.

Dyer: A 'Statistical' Victory Over Terrorism Cannot Be Achieved
E che ca**o e' una "vittoria statistica almeno l'idiota autore del pezzo
lo sa spiegare? :)
-Stefano