Politicisation of war on terrorism

Terrorists strike. Civilians die. Politicians talk rhetoric. This routine has come to symbolize the 21st century or, at least and hopefully, the first decade of it. Tuesday's bomb blitz on India's magnet city Mumbai — a sprawling city of 16 million people — is not India's first encounter with terrorism.

The post-attack scenario resembles the aftermaths of the previous attacks. Journalists covering the news are no better. The description of the scene of the blast, interviews with the victims and statements are all too familiar now. There is not much difference in the pictures, too. Terrorism, it appears, is not an unknown enemy now.

A police officer on security duty looks on at a road checkpost in Bombay. AP

As the scourge continues to claim lives of innocent civilians, the biggest indictment is that the efforts aimed at eliminating terrorism have not borne results.

Neither the unilateral approach nor the collective action has paid off. Will someone do some soul-searching?

Some say the best way to eliminate terrorism is by identifying and addressing the root causes of terrorism. While this may be true, we must also ask why terrorism cannot be dealt with as a law-and-order problem — with international coordination.

The problem with terror-busting is that it has been as politicized as terrorism has been. The notion that one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter still holds water.

In fact, deliberations at the United Nations aimed at drafting a comprehensive terrorism treaty have reached a stalemate over this argument. Countries are bogged down in arguments over who a terrorist is or what constitutes terrorism. The Arab and Islamic nations which are helpless or impotent in the face of Israel’s disproportionate attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians ask: Shouldn't the treaty also cover state terrorism?

At the core of the crisis is politics of greed and national interest.

The response to 9/11 attacks stands out as a clear example of how a cause could be hijacked to meet political ends. The horrific scenes the world witnessed on September 11, 2001, made even an ardent anti-capitalist to have some sympathy for an arrogant superpower. The sympathy wave soon snowballed into a collective action against global terrorism. Everyone, including those in the "freedom fighter" camp, joined the United State's war on terrorism.

But it did not take many moons for the discerning people of the world to realize that the entire war on terrorism was being hijacked by the George W. Bush administration to achieve political ends. In hindsight, it now appears that the road to Iraq was through Afghanistan. And the world that united to fight terrorism is today once again divided on political lines. Countries which face terrorism with no Islamic label are advised by big powers to negotiate with murderers and reach a peaceful solution to the conflict but countries that face terrorism with an Islamic label get all the help from the United States and the West. Hezbollah and Hamas — freedom fighters to the people of Arab and Islamic world and also to those who resist neo-colonialism and imperialism — are demonized and hunted down. Israel's disproportionate military action against Lebanon and Palestinians in Gaza get all the blessings from the West, which does not fail to stress the point that “Israel has every right to defend itself.” The right of the Palestinians to defend themselves against Israeli occupation is not given such recognition. No wonder, Hamas and Hezbollah are labelled as terrorists by the imperialist/neo-colonialist West.

The question as to why Osama bin Laden has not been captured even after nearly five years of US occupation of Afghanistan still begs an answer. If the world's most powerful military backed by the most-advanced intelligence agency equipped with state-of-the art technology could not find the world's most wanted man, it raises some serious questions about US motives. A cynic may ask whether there is an attempt by certain powers to keep terrorism alive so that they can achieve certain goals.

India which has been jolted by the terrorism problem is an active partner in the global (one may read as the United States') war on terrorism. Just as the United States pinned the blame on al-Qaeda within hours, some Indian officials were quick to point their fingers at the Pakistan-based Lakshar-e-Toiba, a group fighting for Kashmir's union with Pakistan, and the Student Islamic Movement of India (SICI), an organization that came to prominence in the aftermath of the 1992 Babri masjid destruction and the subsequent communal violence. Both these groups have denied any role in the barbaric crime.

Whodunit? The truth lies buried. It is alleged that the CIA knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction but evidence was manufactured to justify an aggression on a country which had not declared war on the United States. It is no secret now that the CIA had been warned of a terrorist attacks before the 9/11 attacks actually took place.

The Maharashtra state police chief, P.S. Pasricha, has said the police had known for a "few months" that Mumbai was a target. Such admission surely places a big burden on India's intelligence. If they knew where the terrorists would be striking, probably they must also know who the terrorists were.

There is always a possibility of the involvement of a third party, a third country or an individual, like Bombay smuggler Dawood Ibrahim, a prime suspect in a previous terror wave attack, or even an opposition party, trying to capitalize on a backlash against Muslims.

The Indian government and RAW know about this.

But in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, not only in India but also in Pakistan, we often see the two countries trading barbs, with one accusing the other of having a hand in the attack.

It is happening this time too. Instead of terror-busting, politicization comes to the fore with New Delhi using the sympathy wave the Bombay blasts have generated worldwide to attack Pakistan, for it is largely from Islamabad that the Kashmiri resistance — insurgency, terrorism or whatever it is — derives moral support. Besides there is no better time than this to corner Pakistan when Islamabad is facing criticism from Afghanistan, Britain and even the United States for not doing enough to fight Bush’s war on terror.

Politicisation of terrorism apart, it is heartening to note that the carnage on Tuesday has failed to trigger coordinated attacks on India's 150 million Muslims. If only the attacks had taken place in Narendra Modi's Gujarat, there would have been a massacre of Muslims.