[the best analysis I've read so far - noting that OPEC announced
today that it will not be able to meet demand by 2015 - and closing
with the second call for settlement between Israel and Palestine I
have read in the last 20 minutes, the other being on the Financial
Times website - diametrically opposed on the political scale to
CommonDreams - Stu]
Published on Thursday, July 7, 2005 by TomPaine.com
Why London, Why Now?
by Patrick Doherty
As I write this, the reports are still coming inon the extent of the
casualties from the London subway bombings. The latest AP report says
40 have been killed and 1,000 wounded. There can be no justification
for such an attack, which must be condemned and the perpetrators must
brought to (British) justice. My condolences go out to the people of
London and I can only hope that my friends and former colleagues
there are safe.
That said, now is the time for progressives to lead and not just wait
for Bush. It is imperative that the narrative that emerges from the
devastation in London is not one that plays into the hands of Al
Qaeda or into the hands of the neocons, as happened after 9/11.
Don't Repeat Past Mistakes
That post-9/11 narrative said that America was attacked because "they
hate our freedoms." This turned out to be the first of many lies that
paved the way to our current strategic disaster. In fact, America was
attacked because Al Qaeda hated our policies in the Middle East and,
given their relative inability to strike effectively at either the
Saudi or Israeli governments—their main enemies—they struck at those
governments' primary sponsor, the United States.
Yet that simple narrative, "because they hate our freedoms,"
constructed carefully by the White House communications team, laid
the foundation for the war on Iraq and the expansion of the war on
terrorism well beyond the justifiable and proportionate retaliation
on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Americans believed Al Qaeda was
targeting the United States because we stood for democracy, when, in
reality, they hated us because we massively supported oppressive
regimes in the Middle East.
This time, with that narrative already established, the work of
interpreting the London subway bombings through the Bush worldview is
a much simpler matter. Regrettably, Tony Blair has already begun the
spin in his statement from Gleneagles:
"It's important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize
that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is
greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to
innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world."
We must remember that fear is the primary objective of terrorist
attacks. Violence is merely a means—and it works. In the best of
circumstances, it is difficult for elected representatives to
effectively address the fears of a terrorized constituency and
produce effective policies. That's because when people are insecure,
they want to see action, and counterterrorism requires an incremental
strategy of covert intelligence and law enforcement work that targets
active terrorist cells combined with political and economic
development strategies that drain the swamp of support for the
terrorist networks. It's slow, under-the-radar work.
It's also difficult because most people only understand traditional
military operations that are designed to destroy or control a given
objective. A terror attack in a democracy is much more complex: It
uses fear to distort debate and decision making. Look at America:
after 9/1, we went to war in Iraq without questioning the president.
To make matters worse however, the Bush administration has tried to
conflate the Cold War nuclear threat and the war on terror in order
to create an existential fear that, so far, has resulted in a blank
check from Congress.
Democrats cannot afford to parrot the White House narrative again.
Luckily, Americans are more aware of terrorism, terrorists and
international affairs. That provides the space we need to defuse the
fearmongering. But we also need to understand why and produce an
alternative response.
Why London? Why Now?
For the moment, I am assuming this was the work of Al Qaeda. If that
is the case, the timing of the attack is significant. The G8 Summit
has, as its primary focus, two issues that could strike at the heart
of Islamic extremism by draining the swamp: climate change and
poverty.
Addressing climate change requires radically improving transportation
fuel efficiency and transitioning off fossil fuels as a source of
energy. To the extent that the United States and the rest of the
world adopts sensible climate change policies, the strategic
importance of the Persian Gulf diminishes and America has more room
to promote real democratic and economic reform in the region. Al
Qaeda's strategy, however, requires American dependence on Persian
Gulf energy, to ensure that America continues to wage war to protect
its energy supply.
To show just how dire our global energy situation is, Saudi Arabia
announced today that OPEC will not be able to meet Western demand for
oil by 2015, only 10 years out. Given the timing, this is Saudi
Arabia effectively saying that the time has come to turn toward more
efficient use of oil, which is also one of the main ways of dealing
with climate change. Saudi Arabia just undercut the Bush
administration's position in Gleneagles. That should have been a
major blow to the United States, but it will now be swept away by the
bombings.
Addressing poverty in the developing world, particularly in Africa,
also hurts Al Qaeda's side. To the extent that America is seen as an
imperial aggressor, planting strings of military bases to protect
access to economic resources, the Al Qaeda propaganda is reinforced.
Significant progress on global poverty, however, also "drains the
swamp" of the recruits, resources, territory and cooperation that
these groups need to operate.
But the decisions on what would come out of Gleneagles were made well
before the summit meeting. Changing those decisions would be
diplomatically quite difficult. Odds are that the terrorists knew
this. Therefore the attacks are about changing the direction of the
momentum, about destroying the narrative of progress and hope that
the G8 Summit has produced. The terrorists want to stop the climate
change and poverty focus of the international community and bring it
back to terrorism. Ultimately, Al Qaeda wants to keep the West
distracted from advancing the policies that will deal a heavy blow to
Islamic extremism.
Unfortunately, with Bush still resisting any progress on climate
change, that job was not going to be too difficult. Sadly, with
American neocons still chomping at the bit to attack Iran and Syria,
Al Qaeda will find willing accomplices for their fearmongering in the
think tanks of the right. How neocons will spin this into calls for
military strikes on Iran and Syria is yet to be seen. But call they
will.
Looking Forward
So now it is time for progressives to keep the focus on draining the
swamp, not on counterproductive military adventures that will only
reinforce Al Qaeda propaganda. Aggressive and innovative policies to
address climate change and poverty are two of the most powerful ways
accomplish this. So is a smart exit strategy from Iraq and a final
settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.
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