By Paul Tate
The Christian coalition in the US declared May 6th a ‘national day of prayer for Israel’. The date is the start of a month long rally across the US by evangelical Christian groups and begins at the White House where the bombed-out shell of Israeli bus no. 19 will be displayed for much of the coming month. In the run up to the US elections, the supporters of Israel are making their point loud and clear: hands off!
These groups backed by a whole infrastructure of churches, radio stations, websites and bible colleges teaching ‘Middle East history’ all share a common goal and a number one priority: the survival and expansion of the Jewish state. This is the one issue that unites evangelicals in the US. The welfare of a state 7,000 miles away is for them far more important than traditional domestic issues such as abortion, fornication and school prayer: this begs one question, why?
Well, since the late 19th century an increasing number of fundamentalists Christians have come to believe that the second coming of Christ is bound up with the political geography of Israel. However, in their literalist and selective interpretation of the Bible certain preconditions must be met before Christ will return. The first of these was the establishment of the State of Israel. Also included are Israel’s occupation of the rest of its ‘biblical lands’ and the rebuilding of the third temple on the site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.
As the story goes, once these events have been completed the legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel leading to the final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will then be given a choice, not much of one but a choice nonetheless: either burn in hell or convert to Christianity. Finally, after all this has taken place the Messiah will return to earth. According to the most influential of the Christian Zionists, Hal Lindsey, the valley from Galilee to Eilat will flow with blood and "144,000 Jews would bow down before Jesus and be saved, but the rest of Jewry would perish in the mother of all holocausts".
So what’s in it for the Christian fundamentalists? Well, the true believers (those who ascribe to this lunacy) will be raised to heaven before the final battle commences and get to watch the whole gory spectacle from a seated grandstand at the right hand of the Lord. Sound crazy? But I jest thee not, this is what these people actually believe. What’s more, these are the people who are holding the Middle East peace process to ransom. These are the people who sponsor Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, who demand ever more US support for Israel, not because they love Jews, far from it; the whole drama is rather like ‘a five-act play in which the Jews disappear in the fourth act.’ The result of this drama is the genocide of the Jews.
Given that the end result of this creed is the end of Judaism and the death of thousands of Jews who refuse to accept Jesus as their saviour, one would think that the ever zealous Jewish lobby would be up in arms. Not a chance. Far from opposing this twisted ideology which legitimises oppression, theft and genocide in the name of religion, the Israeli government and Jewish lobby groups in the US have long since exploited the connections with far-right US Christian groups. Far from being outraged, the Israeli embassy in Washington actually holds weekly Christian Zionist prayer meetings – not something they like to shout about for obvious reasons. What’s more, Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, accepts their support, as does AIPAC.
These fundamentalists, for surely if anyone deserves this title these people do, are courted at all levels of the Israeli government and have access to key Israeli politicians. US churches are encouraged to form links with Jewish settlers via email and to support them through fundraising, which they do in abundance. While moderate Christians, such as the Palestinian Bishop of Jerusalem, find it almost impossible to get an audience with Ariel Sharon despite repeated requests, the door is always open to southern Baptists and TV evangelists. Sharon and the beloved Bibi (Netanyahu) are the ‘rock stars’ of this creed. The fundamentalists rightly view the right-wing Likud leaders as their best chance of witnessing Armageddon: they need Israeli warmongers to fulfil their eschatological fantasies. Strange isn’t it? That such an influential bunch of Armageddonite fanatics, who have the ability to determine the fate of the Middle East in general, and Palestine in particular, are so completely ignored by the mass media. The crazed world of Christian Zionism is unknown to the average man in the street.
Although we may laugh at these people and dismiss them as cranks and fanatics, we should certainly not under-estimate them. For in the US today, there are 45 million evangelicals who believe this nonsense and they represent a crucial block vote for born-again Bush. American Christian Zionists claim they are now a more important source of support for Israel than American Jews or the traditional Jewish lobby. According to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who claims to speak for them all, “the Bible Belt in America is Israel’s safety belt.” If a significant number of them become sufficiently disillusioned to abstain from voting, it could cost Bush the election. “There’s nothing that would bring the wrath of the Christian public in this country down on this government like abandoning or opposing Israel in a critical matter,” Falwell says. The “Christian public” is, he notes, Mr. Bush’s core constituency.
So for the next month, the inhabitant of the White House will be waking up each morning to the shell of Israeli bus no. 19. And the message will be absolutely clear: if you want to win the election Mr President and get to sit at the right hand of God, you better back Sharon all the way. NOV 2004
Thursday, December 14, 2006
The privatisation of war
By Paul Tate
The abuse of prisoners that took place at Abu Ghraib was shocking. But equally as shocking was the revelation that the interrogation of prisoners had been outsourced to private contractors. The creeping privatisation of this conflict is only just coming to light.
It is estimated that there are now 20,000 plus private ‘enterprise soldiers’ in Iraq – one for every 10 soldiers. Indeed, there are more private military employees on the ground than troops from any one ally, including Britain. Private Military Firms (PMFs) are big business in the new Iraq. According to US army estimates, out of the $87bn that will be spent on US troops, a third of that, nearly $30bn, will be paid to PMFs, which carry out military roles from logistics and local army training to guarding installations and convoys, and as demonstrated by the incidents in Abu Ghraib - interrogating prisoners. Peter Singer, a Brookings Institute scholar and author of Corporate Warrior, aptly refers to the situation in Iraq more as, ‘the coalition of the billing, rather than willing”.
A number of factors have led to the growth of PMFs. The downsizing of the US military in the post cold war world has lead to an urgent need for hired guns for the overstretched US military in the post 9/11 world. Ex-military personnel now find they can earn $100,000 a year doing the same job they once did for peanuts. But the growth of private contractors has also been encouraged at the highest levels of the US administration. Back in 1991, when Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defence for George Bush Sr., he gave Kellogg Brown and Root (a Halliburton subsidiary) a contract to advise the US military on how to privatise the army. Since that time there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of private personnel working for the US military and the industry has recorded a staggering $100bn in revenue. The result is that a huge ‘conflict industry’ has grown up around the Pentagon. The proponents of ‘privatised warfare’, including Rumsfeld and Cheney, defend the increased use of PMFs on the grounds that they reduce overheads and therefore save the US government (taxpayer) money – given the number of private contractors now active and the vast sums involved, this argument is extremely debatable. It is true however, that short term contracts mean that mercenaries can be hired and fired at will. They can also be sent to conflict zones around the world at a moments notice and are currently active on all fronts in the ‘war on terror’ including: the hunt for Ben Laden on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; the Philippines, Central Asia and what those on the industry now refer to as, ‘the goldmine’ of Iraq.
The use of “hired guns” clearly has many advantages. Private security contractors are not accountable to either military or Iraqi law for their actions. Although one US soldier has been given the maximum one year sentence and another six are facing court-martial for their role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, employees of CACI International, harshly criticised by Major General Taguba in the military investigation, will face no such fate. This is due to the fact that ‘civilian contractors’ cannot be court-martialled under the military code of conduct. In addition, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued a decree which specifically excluded PMFs from Iraqi law. Neither are they subject to US law given that criminal acts such as those witnessed in Abu Ghraib were committed abroad and in some cases by contractors working for the US military, but not US citizens. Examples of other criminal acts such as the human trafficking and prostitution rackets in Bosnia committed by DynCorp, another security contractor active in Iraq, highlight the dangers. In this case, as in the case of Abu Ghraib, the ‘civilian’ personnel responsible were simply ‘relieved of their duties’ and no criminal charges have been brought.
One can’t help thinking that the increased use of private contractors is rather convenient for US military chiefs attempting to cut corners in the ‘war on terror.’ As Phillip Carter, an ex-military US army officer now at the University of California (UCLA) notes, “the situation is analogues to that other legal grey zone in Guantanamo Bay”. Therefore, the more cynical among us may draw the conclusion that the very fact that these companies are operating in a legal loophole is what makes them such an attractive proposition to strategists in the Pentagon. They can be used to do the dirty work of the military and CIA, while still maintaining relative immunity. This makes them a very useful tool in the ‘war on terror’. The privatisation of US forces not only enables the US to wage wars by proxy using private militias recruited from around the globe, it also, as Peter Singer points out, “allows them to wage these wars without the hindrance of congressional or media oversight”.
Another interesting point is that the pentagon keeps no record concerning the amount of private mercenaries killed in Iraq. According to Singer, It is estimated that 350 mercenaries have been killed in Iraq since the start of the conflict and hundreds more injured. These figures are not included in the regular body count put out by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). This is very convenient for a White House increasingly concerned with US body bags in the run up to the elections. In addition, it is no coincidence that by the CPA’s own estimations, the number of private contractors will increase to 30,000 after the ‘handover of sovereignty’ on June 30, largely due to the fact that the Green Zone itself will then be privatised.
As Karim al-Gawahry of al-Akram newspaper has pointed out, “the Bush administration desperately wants to bring at least some of the boys back home during the forthcoming election campaign, hence the increase in private companies”. This will allow the White House to claim that US troops are being pulled out and thus divert media attention from the conflict. The body bags will still be arriving in the middle of the night but the cameras will be focused on the ‘grand homecoming.’
So here we have it, neo-liberal capitalism taken to extremes. What we now have in Iraq is a situation where private companies are operating with impunity – outside the scope of international law. Not only that, these companies are making billions of dollars, are not subject to any chain of command and as long as the money keeps rolling in have little incentive to leave. On the contrary, they have a vested interest in stretching out the conflict as evident by their ‘political activities’ in Washington. In 2002, $32m was spent by these firms on political lobbying and $12m was donated to political parties, with the George Bush’s Republican Party taking the lion’s share of the cake. And guess what? Among the largest donators was Dick Cheney’s old firm – Halliburton.
The abuse of prisoners that took place at Abu Ghraib was shocking. But equally as shocking was the revelation that the interrogation of prisoners had been outsourced to private contractors. The creeping privatisation of this conflict is only just coming to light.
It is estimated that there are now 20,000 plus private ‘enterprise soldiers’ in Iraq – one for every 10 soldiers. Indeed, there are more private military employees on the ground than troops from any one ally, including Britain. Private Military Firms (PMFs) are big business in the new Iraq. According to US army estimates, out of the $87bn that will be spent on US troops, a third of that, nearly $30bn, will be paid to PMFs, which carry out military roles from logistics and local army training to guarding installations and convoys, and as demonstrated by the incidents in Abu Ghraib - interrogating prisoners. Peter Singer, a Brookings Institute scholar and author of Corporate Warrior, aptly refers to the situation in Iraq more as, ‘the coalition of the billing, rather than willing”.
A number of factors have led to the growth of PMFs. The downsizing of the US military in the post cold war world has lead to an urgent need for hired guns for the overstretched US military in the post 9/11 world. Ex-military personnel now find they can earn $100,000 a year doing the same job they once did for peanuts. But the growth of private contractors has also been encouraged at the highest levels of the US administration. Back in 1991, when Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defence for George Bush Sr., he gave Kellogg Brown and Root (a Halliburton subsidiary) a contract to advise the US military on how to privatise the army. Since that time there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of private personnel working for the US military and the industry has recorded a staggering $100bn in revenue. The result is that a huge ‘conflict industry’ has grown up around the Pentagon. The proponents of ‘privatised warfare’, including Rumsfeld and Cheney, defend the increased use of PMFs on the grounds that they reduce overheads and therefore save the US government (taxpayer) money – given the number of private contractors now active and the vast sums involved, this argument is extremely debatable. It is true however, that short term contracts mean that mercenaries can be hired and fired at will. They can also be sent to conflict zones around the world at a moments notice and are currently active on all fronts in the ‘war on terror’ including: the hunt for Ben Laden on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; the Philippines, Central Asia and what those on the industry now refer to as, ‘the goldmine’ of Iraq.
The use of “hired guns” clearly has many advantages. Private security contractors are not accountable to either military or Iraqi law for their actions. Although one US soldier has been given the maximum one year sentence and another six are facing court-martial for their role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, employees of CACI International, harshly criticised by Major General Taguba in the military investigation, will face no such fate. This is due to the fact that ‘civilian contractors’ cannot be court-martialled under the military code of conduct. In addition, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued a decree which specifically excluded PMFs from Iraqi law. Neither are they subject to US law given that criminal acts such as those witnessed in Abu Ghraib were committed abroad and in some cases by contractors working for the US military, but not US citizens. Examples of other criminal acts such as the human trafficking and prostitution rackets in Bosnia committed by DynCorp, another security contractor active in Iraq, highlight the dangers. In this case, as in the case of Abu Ghraib, the ‘civilian’ personnel responsible were simply ‘relieved of their duties’ and no criminal charges have been brought.
One can’t help thinking that the increased use of private contractors is rather convenient for US military chiefs attempting to cut corners in the ‘war on terror.’ As Phillip Carter, an ex-military US army officer now at the University of California (UCLA) notes, “the situation is analogues to that other legal grey zone in Guantanamo Bay”. Therefore, the more cynical among us may draw the conclusion that the very fact that these companies are operating in a legal loophole is what makes them such an attractive proposition to strategists in the Pentagon. They can be used to do the dirty work of the military and CIA, while still maintaining relative immunity. This makes them a very useful tool in the ‘war on terror’. The privatisation of US forces not only enables the US to wage wars by proxy using private militias recruited from around the globe, it also, as Peter Singer points out, “allows them to wage these wars without the hindrance of congressional or media oversight”.
Another interesting point is that the pentagon keeps no record concerning the amount of private mercenaries killed in Iraq. According to Singer, It is estimated that 350 mercenaries have been killed in Iraq since the start of the conflict and hundreds more injured. These figures are not included in the regular body count put out by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). This is very convenient for a White House increasingly concerned with US body bags in the run up to the elections. In addition, it is no coincidence that by the CPA’s own estimations, the number of private contractors will increase to 30,000 after the ‘handover of sovereignty’ on June 30, largely due to the fact that the Green Zone itself will then be privatised.
As Karim al-Gawahry of al-Akram newspaper has pointed out, “the Bush administration desperately wants to bring at least some of the boys back home during the forthcoming election campaign, hence the increase in private companies”. This will allow the White House to claim that US troops are being pulled out and thus divert media attention from the conflict. The body bags will still be arriving in the middle of the night but the cameras will be focused on the ‘grand homecoming.’
So here we have it, neo-liberal capitalism taken to extremes. What we now have in Iraq is a situation where private companies are operating with impunity – outside the scope of international law. Not only that, these companies are making billions of dollars, are not subject to any chain of command and as long as the money keeps rolling in have little incentive to leave. On the contrary, they have a vested interest in stretching out the conflict as evident by their ‘political activities’ in Washington. In 2002, $32m was spent by these firms on political lobbying and $12m was donated to political parties, with the George Bush’s Republican Party taking the lion’s share of the cake. And guess what? Among the largest donators was Dick Cheney’s old firm – Halliburton.
Jihadi groups alienate support base
By Paul Tate
Despite the best efforts of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to recruit a new pool of terrorists for Al Qaeda, the atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Madrid, Istanbul and Iraq may contain the very seeds that have caused previous Islamist insurgencies to collapse.
The increasingly random, brutal and indiscriminate acts of Al Qaeda cells around the world appear to reveal an organisation that has fragmented into desperate groups of individuals with no overall command structure. A clear example of this is the organisation's change of tactics and its apparent inability to target high-profile symbols of US power. The foot soldiers of the organisation are still active and increasingly dangerous, but the brains are missing. Carefully selected targets representing US military and economic might have been replaced by so-called "soft targets". Drive-by shootings of Western civilians, beheading of hostages and blowing up of innocent civilians on commuter trains have become the order of the day.
Most damagingly for the militants, increasing numbers of Muslim bystanders are dying as a result. Of course, many Muslims died on Sept. 11 and in the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, but the fact that the targets were chosen because they represented symbols of US power gave the militants a certain "credibility". As callous and barbaric as these attacks were, for many people, and not just in the Middle East, the fact that Al Qaeda was able to strike at such potent symbols of US economic and political power overshadowed the carnage.
The leaders of Al Qaeda were well aware of the "PR value" of these targets, something that cannot be said now. The murder and recorded beheadings of civilian contractors in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of commuter trains taking ordinary people to work in Madrid and the killing of innocent Muslim bystanders in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul and Iraq have done nothing for Al Qaeda''s credibility. In their lust for blood, the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda have failed to learn from their predecessors in the Egyptian Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah or the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria.
In both these countries, the militant groups were initially able to exploit widely held grievances not only against the ruling secular regimes, but also against the biased policies of the US towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now their support base has vanished and their activities all but ceased. This was not solely due to the repression suffered at the hands of the security forces, although this destroyed a large part of their leadership. To a large extent, it was also due to the fact that these groups, through their increasingly barbaric acts, destroyed any legitimacy they may once have had with the very people they claimed to represent. No terrorist organisation can operate without the tactic support of at least part of the local population.
The massacre at Luxor in 1997 was the final brutal act committed by the Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah. It sent waves of revulsion through the Egyptian population and caused increased hardship for those dependent on the tourist industry to feed their families. The terrorists in this attack were actually chased into the surrounding hills by enraged locals, with some reports claiming they were then beaten to death and their bodies set alight. Through their barbarity, the militants turned the very people they claimed to represent against them and found it increasingly difficult to operate.
Similarly, in Algeria, what started out as a "popular uprising" soon descended into an orgy of violence. The security clampdown fractured the command structure and the militant groups became disorganised, blood thirsty and indiscriminate in their attacks. The result was that the radicals alienated the majority of their original supporters, who turned against them and began reporting any suspicious incidents to the security services making it difficult for the militants to operate. As a consequence the violence eventually subsided.
Through their barbaric acts of violence, the above militant groups gained a reputation as psychopathic killers, as opposed to the heroic Mujahedeen. Their true agenda and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life became visible for all to see. There are signs that Al Qaeda is following an identical course. One wonders how much killing it will take in Iraq or elsewhere before a similar fate awaits the latest crop of militants.
Despite the best efforts of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to recruit a new pool of terrorists for Al Qaeda, the atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Madrid, Istanbul and Iraq may contain the very seeds that have caused previous Islamist insurgencies to collapse.
The increasingly random, brutal and indiscriminate acts of Al Qaeda cells around the world appear to reveal an organisation that has fragmented into desperate groups of individuals with no overall command structure. A clear example of this is the organisation's change of tactics and its apparent inability to target high-profile symbols of US power. The foot soldiers of the organisation are still active and increasingly dangerous, but the brains are missing. Carefully selected targets representing US military and economic might have been replaced by so-called "soft targets". Drive-by shootings of Western civilians, beheading of hostages and blowing up of innocent civilians on commuter trains have become the order of the day.
Most damagingly for the militants, increasing numbers of Muslim bystanders are dying as a result. Of course, many Muslims died on Sept. 11 and in the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, but the fact that the targets were chosen because they represented symbols of US power gave the militants a certain "credibility". As callous and barbaric as these attacks were, for many people, and not just in the Middle East, the fact that Al Qaeda was able to strike at such potent symbols of US economic and political power overshadowed the carnage.
The leaders of Al Qaeda were well aware of the "PR value" of these targets, something that cannot be said now. The murder and recorded beheadings of civilian contractors in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of commuter trains taking ordinary people to work in Madrid and the killing of innocent Muslim bystanders in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul and Iraq have done nothing for Al Qaeda''s credibility. In their lust for blood, the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda have failed to learn from their predecessors in the Egyptian Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah or the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria.
In both these countries, the militant groups were initially able to exploit widely held grievances not only against the ruling secular regimes, but also against the biased policies of the US towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now their support base has vanished and their activities all but ceased. This was not solely due to the repression suffered at the hands of the security forces, although this destroyed a large part of their leadership. To a large extent, it was also due to the fact that these groups, through their increasingly barbaric acts, destroyed any legitimacy they may once have had with the very people they claimed to represent. No terrorist organisation can operate without the tactic support of at least part of the local population.
The massacre at Luxor in 1997 was the final brutal act committed by the Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah. It sent waves of revulsion through the Egyptian population and caused increased hardship for those dependent on the tourist industry to feed their families. The terrorists in this attack were actually chased into the surrounding hills by enraged locals, with some reports claiming they were then beaten to death and their bodies set alight. Through their barbarity, the militants turned the very people they claimed to represent against them and found it increasingly difficult to operate.
Similarly, in Algeria, what started out as a "popular uprising" soon descended into an orgy of violence. The security clampdown fractured the command structure and the militant groups became disorganised, blood thirsty and indiscriminate in their attacks. The result was that the radicals alienated the majority of their original supporters, who turned against them and began reporting any suspicious incidents to the security services making it difficult for the militants to operate. As a consequence the violence eventually subsided.
Through their barbaric acts of violence, the above militant groups gained a reputation as psychopathic killers, as opposed to the heroic Mujahedeen. Their true agenda and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life became visible for all to see. There are signs that Al Qaeda is following an identical course. One wonders how much killing it will take in Iraq or elsewhere before a similar fate awaits the latest crop of militants.
Jihadi groups alienate support base
Jihadi groups alienate support base
By Paul Tate Despite the best efforts of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to recruit a new pool of terrorists for Al Qaeda, the atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Madrid, Istanbul and Iraq may contain the very seeds that have caused previous Islamist insurgencies to collapse. The increasingly random, brutal and indiscriminate acts of Al Qaeda cells around the world appear to reveal an organisation that has fragmented into desperate groups of individuals with no overall command structure. A clear example of this is the organisation's change of tactics and its apparent inability to target high-profile symbols of US power. The foot soldiers of the organisation are still active and increasingly dangerous, but the brains are missing. Carefully selected targets representing US military and economic might have been replaced by so-called "soft targets". Drive-by shootings of Western civilians, beheading of hostages and blowing up of innocent civilians on commuter trains have become the order of the day. Most damagingly for the militants, increasing numbers of Muslim bystanders are dying as a result. Of course, many Muslims died on Sept. 11 and in the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, but the fact that the targets were chosen because they represented symbols of US power gave the militants a certain "credibility". As callous and barbaric as these attacks were, for many people, and not just in the Middle East, the fact that Al Qaeda was able to strike at such potent symbols of US economic and political power overshadowed the carnage. The leaders of Al Qaeda were well aware of the "PR value" of these targets, something that cannot be said now. The murder and recorded beheadings of civilian contractors in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of commuter trains taking ordinary people to work in Madrid and the killing of innocent Muslim bystanders in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul and Iraq have done nothing for Al Qaeda''s credibility. In their lust for blood, the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda have failed to learn from their predecessors in the Egyptian Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah or the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria. In both these countries, the militant groups were initially able to exploit widely held grievances not only against the ruling secular regimes, but also against the biased policies of the US towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now their support base has vanished and their activities all but ceased. This was not solely due to the repression suffered at the hands of the security forces, although this destroyed a large part of their leadership. To a large extent, it was also due to the fact that these groups, through their increasingly barbaric acts, destroyed any legitimacy they may once have had with the very people they claimed to represent. No terrorist organisation can operate without the tactic support of at least part of the local population. The massacre at Luxor in 1997 was the final brutal act committed by the Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah. It sent waves of revulsion through the Egyptian population and caused increased hardship for those dependent on the tourist industry to feed their families. The terrorists in this attack were actually chased into the surrounding hills by enraged locals, with some reports claiming they were then beaten to death and their bodies set alight. Through their barbarity, the militants turned the very people they claimed to represent against them and found it increasingly difficult to operate. Similarly, in Algeria, what started out as a "popular uprising" soon descended into an orgy of violence. The security clampdown fractured the command structure and the militant groups became disorganised, blood thirsty and indiscriminate in their attacks. The result was that the radicals alienated the majority of their original supporters, who turned against them and began reporting any suspicious incidents to the security services making it difficult for the militants to operate. As a consequence the violence eventually subsided.
Through their barbaric acts of violence, the above militant groups gained a reputation as psychopathic killers, as opposed to the heroic Mujahedeen. Their true agenda and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life became visible for all to see. There are signs that Al Qaeda is following an identical course. One wonders how much killing it will take in Iraq or elsewhere before a similar fate awaits the latest crop of militants.
By Paul Tate Despite the best efforts of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to recruit a new pool of terrorists for Al Qaeda, the atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Madrid, Istanbul and Iraq may contain the very seeds that have caused previous Islamist insurgencies to collapse. The increasingly random, brutal and indiscriminate acts of Al Qaeda cells around the world appear to reveal an organisation that has fragmented into desperate groups of individuals with no overall command structure. A clear example of this is the organisation's change of tactics and its apparent inability to target high-profile symbols of US power. The foot soldiers of the organisation are still active and increasingly dangerous, but the brains are missing. Carefully selected targets representing US military and economic might have been replaced by so-called "soft targets". Drive-by shootings of Western civilians, beheading of hostages and blowing up of innocent civilians on commuter trains have become the order of the day. Most damagingly for the militants, increasing numbers of Muslim bystanders are dying as a result. Of course, many Muslims died on Sept. 11 and in the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, but the fact that the targets were chosen because they represented symbols of US power gave the militants a certain "credibility". As callous and barbaric as these attacks were, for many people, and not just in the Middle East, the fact that Al Qaeda was able to strike at such potent symbols of US economic and political power overshadowed the carnage. The leaders of Al Qaeda were well aware of the "PR value" of these targets, something that cannot be said now. The murder and recorded beheadings of civilian contractors in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of commuter trains taking ordinary people to work in Madrid and the killing of innocent Muslim bystanders in Saudi Arabia, Istanbul and Iraq have done nothing for Al Qaeda''s credibility. In their lust for blood, the radical Islamists of Al Qaeda have failed to learn from their predecessors in the Egyptian Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah or the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria. In both these countries, the militant groups were initially able to exploit widely held grievances not only against the ruling secular regimes, but also against the biased policies of the US towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now their support base has vanished and their activities all but ceased. This was not solely due to the repression suffered at the hands of the security forces, although this destroyed a large part of their leadership. To a large extent, it was also due to the fact that these groups, through their increasingly barbaric acts, destroyed any legitimacy they may once have had with the very people they claimed to represent. No terrorist organisation can operate without the tactic support of at least part of the local population. The massacre at Luxor in 1997 was the final brutal act committed by the Al Jamiah Al Islamiyah. It sent waves of revulsion through the Egyptian population and caused increased hardship for those dependent on the tourist industry to feed their families. The terrorists in this attack were actually chased into the surrounding hills by enraged locals, with some reports claiming they were then beaten to death and their bodies set alight. Through their barbarity, the militants turned the very people they claimed to represent against them and found it increasingly difficult to operate. Similarly, in Algeria, what started out as a "popular uprising" soon descended into an orgy of violence. The security clampdown fractured the command structure and the militant groups became disorganised, blood thirsty and indiscriminate in their attacks. The result was that the radicals alienated the majority of their original supporters, who turned against them and began reporting any suspicious incidents to the security services making it difficult for the militants to operate. As a consequence the violence eventually subsided.
Through their barbaric acts of violence, the above militant groups gained a reputation as psychopathic killers, as opposed to the heroic Mujahedeen. Their true agenda and complete disregard for the sanctity of human life became visible for all to see. There are signs that Al Qaeda is following an identical course. One wonders how much killing it will take in Iraq or elsewhere before a similar fate awaits the latest crop of militants.
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