Zero-Tolerance,Pranab Style Diplomacy and Security Challanges in Asia
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashchandrabiswas@gmail.com">palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com
Benazir barred from leaving Pak
http://specials.rediff.com/news/2007/oct/24video.htm
China Launches First Lunar Probe
New York Times - 57 minutes ago
By JIM YARDLEY BEIJING, Oct. 24 - With a regional space race heating up in Asia, China launched its first lunar probe into space today as the Communist Party moved a step closer to fulfilling its ambitions of one day reaching the moon.
Russia and China today acknowledged India's growing status in the international affairs but stopped short of explicitly backing New Delhi's claim to a permanent seat in the revamped UN Security Council.
"The Foreign Ministers of China and Russia reiterated that their countries attach importance to the status of India in international affairs and understand and support India's aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations," a joint communique issued at the end of the third standalone meeting of the Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia, said.
India today asked the international community to show "zero-tolerance" towards terrorism while emphasising that the Taliban remnants in Afghanistan should not be allowed to take control of parts of the strife-torn nation.
"Under no circumstances Taliban should be allowed to take control in any area," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters at a joint press conference at the end of the third trilateral meeting of Foreign Ministers of India, China and Russia here in northeast China.He said the meeting dwelt on the Afghanistan issue and noted that the peace process in Afghanistan should be expedited and all stakeholders should be engaged.
Mukherjee said they discussed and reached agreement that there should be a comprehensive mechanism to tackle the problem of terrorism.
"Terrorism is a regular agenda item in our meetings," the minister said.He said the international community should exercise "zero-tolerance" towards any terrorist actions.
The three Foreign Ministers reiterated their strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
"No act of terrorism can be compartmentalised, and there can be no justification for terrorism on any ground," Mukherjee, Yang and Lavrov said in a joint communiqui.
"It is imperative for the international community to come together to combat terrorism in a long-term, sustained and comprehensive manner," it said.
India is seeking a full-fledged permanent membership in the revamped United Nations Security Council. While many countries have expressed support for India's bid, Beijing is yet to fully back New Delhi.Meanwhile, at the trilateral meeting between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov here today, they underlined that the UN is the most representative and authoritative international organisation.
"In order to deal with various problems and challenges facing the international community more effectively, it is important to strengthen the role of the United Nations, improve its efficiency and conduct a comprehensive reform of the United Nations," the communique adopted by the three ministers said.
Amid rising international pressure on Myanmar’s junta, India said Tuesday it would play an active role in helping the country to move toward democracy.On the other hand,India on Wednesday ruled out being part of the controversial us-led missile defence system, opposed by countries like Russia and China.External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin on Wednesday.The meeting took place at the initiative of the Russian side, sources said.Details of their talks were not available.The meeting took place on the sidelines of the third standalone meeting of the foreign ministers of India, China and Russia in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.During his Russian visit earlier this month, Mukherjee could not meet Lavrov, and media reports claimed that the cold reception to the Indian minister was a rebuff.The Indian government, however, suggested that the meetings could not not take place because of schedule constraints of Russian leaders.
The placement of U.S. missile defenses in Europe will not ease global security concerns but will undermine the global strategic balance, the Chinese foreign minister said Wednesday.
Washington insists that the deployment of a radar in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland will protect the U.S. and its NATO allies from potential missile attacks coming from Iran or North Korea, despite Russia's objections.
Speaking at a news conference after a meeting between foreign ministers of China, Russia and India, Yang Jiechi expressed hope that a new concept of global security, characterized by mutual trust and equal rights, could be established in the future.
The Harbin meeting is the third stand-alone meeting of the foreign ministers from the three countries. New Delhi hosted the previous two meetings, which some experts and media said could be aimed at setting up a military-political alliance to counter the influence of the United States in the region.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the news conference in Harbin that Russia has no plans to form a military union with India and China.
He said Moscow is developing dialogue with the two Asian countries through bilateral as well as trilateral formats, within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other structures.
"We are striving to jointly resolve key issues of security through multilateral dialogue, primarily by political and diplomatic means," Lavrov said.
"There is no alternative to a multi-polar and equal-rights cooperation in the world if we want to respond effectively to the existing threats," he said.
In Islamabad, on the otherhand, unfolds a new drama as Former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto on Wednesday named four suspects, for the attack on her convoy on October 18, in her letter to the government, Geo TV said.The four persons named in the letter are Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi, IB chief Ijaz Shah, former Inter Services Intelligence Head Hamid Gul and ex-deputy chairman of National Accountability Bureau Hassan Waseem Afzal, Geo TV reported.Pakistan People's Party chairperson Benazir Bhuttohas asserted that the October 18 terrorist attacks on her homecoming procession should not be made a pretext for cancelling or postponing the general elections.While,Saudi Arabia is pressing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf [Images] to allow former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to return home before the upcoming general elections, media reports said.Daily Times quoted highly placed sources as saying that Saudi monarch King Abdullah issued an appeal to Gen Musharraf in this regard on October 15.However, in his response, Gen Musharraf conveyed to King Abdullah that though Sharif's wife Kulsoom, presently in London [Images], could return home immediately, the former prime minister and his brother Shahbaz Sharif would be allowed only after general elections.
The senior detective leading the probe into the suicide attack on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has withdrawn from the case because she objected to his credentials, a senior official said on Wednesday.
``The investigation team will be formed anew after Manzur Mughal disassociated himself from the investigation in view of the objections raised by Benazir Bhutto on the chief investigator's credentials,'' said Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem, the home secretary of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.
The United States has praised Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for his role in the war on terror, but said that Islamabad had not been successful in closing down the terror network in restive tribal areas on the Afghan border.
"Now, in those tribal areas, they made some efforts. Thus far, they have not been successful in closing down these terrorist networks and those who are supporting them," the US Assisstant Secretary of State Sean McCormack said.
"That's going to require a concerted effort. And we're going to continue to work with the Pakistani Government to see that there is not a safe haven from where terrorist groups can operate," he said in a briefing.
Lauding Islamabad for its efforts to combat terrorists, McCormack said: "They have worked closely with us to set Pakistan on a different course. President Musharraf has decided that himself and we have tried to be supportive of that." Pakistan had "launched numerous operations to try to disrupt terrorist attacks as well as break up terrorist cells", he said, adding "there was an issue of al-Qaeda and Taliban sympathisers operating in the tribal regions in its northwest.
"The Prime Minister (Shaukat Aziz) and his government are very much aware that it's a problem. We've seen the kind of violence that potentially can emanate from those regions and it is directed at us, it's directed at the Afghan populations. It's directed at Pakistani populations. So they understand very well what the threat is", McCormack added.
Shahbaz Sharif, also the president of Pakistan Muslim Leauge- Nawaz (PML-N) told Geo News yesterday that Gen Musharraf was pressing his brother to delay his return through his overseas friends. Nawaz Sharif was deported to Saudi Arabia on September 10 when he tried to stage a comeback.
Significantly, media reports also said Saad Hariri, son of assassinated Lebanon prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and former Saudi ambassador to the US Prince Bandar Bin Sultan met Sharif in Jeddah on October 7, asking him to delay his return at least till November 17.
Hariri is said to be very close to President Pervez Musharraf. They told him that his further stay in Saudi Arabia would be in the interest of his own country.
However, Sharif got a promise form his guests that they would not press him again to change his plans.
Meanwhile, Bhutto said that her party might join the caretaker set-up if it was convinced that it would be for holding free, fair and transparent elections.Bhutto questioned the composition of the Election Commission and claimed that its secretary was involved in the 2002 elections.The former prime minister reiterated her demand for associating foreign experts in the investigation of the bombings and said she had been appalled by government's insistence on not including them in the probe. She said she feared that evidence might be destroyed with the passage of time, the Dawn reported.She criticised Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain's for alleging that the PPP itself was involved in the October 18 blasts.
Meanwhile, officials confirmed that two suicide bombers were behind the bomb attacks.Also, the officer heading the probe into the blasts was expected to be replaced after Bhutto said she had no confidence in him, the paper quoted officials as saying.Sindh Home Adviser Wasim Akhtar also confirmed that the change was being considered, although he did not say if it was in response to Bhutto's claims.
The Pakistan government has deployed 4,000 troops in the Swat valley of North West Frontier Province to counter the activities of a pro-Taliban cleric whose men have challenged the writ of the local administration.The move came hours after four security personnel were injured in a bomb attack on a military caravan in the Malakand area late on Tuesday. Seven persons were arrested in connection with the attack.Military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad on Wednesday said the paramilitary troops had been deployed to stop the illegal activities of Maulana Faizullah, a radical cleric who is popularly known as the "FM Maulana" for his fiery sermons and edicts broadcast on an illegal FM radio station.Faizullah is the leader of the band Tanzim Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi and has thousands of followers.Reports from Swat, located 50 km from the provincial capital of Peshawar, said the troops were advancing towards Faizullah's madrassa. Many people were fleeing the region as they were apprehensive about the outbreak of violent clashes.
Closer cooperation between China, India and Russia is "conducive" for the creation of a multi-polar world and democratisation of international relations, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in Harbin on Wednesday.
"Through this trilateral meeting, we have been able to cooperate closely to create a better international environment and a better environment in our own neighbourhood," Yang said while hosting a luncheon in honour of his Indian and Russian counterparts in Harbin.
"This format is also conducive for the creation of multipolarisation and democratisation of international relations," Yang, also host of the third stand-alone trilateral meeting of three foreign ministers, said even as senior officials of the three sides stress that their cooperation was not targeted at a third party.
"The three major countries, Russia, India and my own country are all developing very rapidly. We are all contributing in our own way to peace, stability and development," he said.
The three foreign ministers are expected to discuss regional and international issues and expansion of trilateral cooperation, official sources said.
"We are all looking forward to this afternoon's trilateral of the three foreign ministers," Yang said.
"I am sure that with our joint efforts this meeting will be crowned with success," Yang said while toasting with his Indian and Russian counterparts Pranab Mukherjee and Sergei Lavrov, stressing on the "ever-growing friendship and cooperation between China, Russia and India and for the good health and happiness of everyone."He noted that the foreign ministers have many topics to discuss during their meeting and thanked New Delhi and Moscow [Images] for their close cooperation and support during the process of the preparatory work.
Though the visit by the Indian and Russian foreign ministers to Harbin is short, Yang hoped that the two ministers will get a glimpse of the northeast Chinese city, which the Chinese foreign minister described as one of the most beautiful in China.
Earlier, Mukherjee, accompanied by senior officials arrived in Harbin by a special plane.
Wednesday's three-way meeting will be the third standalone trilateral foreign ministers' meeting after the last one in New Delhi on February 14, 2007, and the first one in Vladivostok on June 2, 2005.The three foreign ministers have also met on the sidelines of multilateral forums in September 2002, September 2003, October 2004 and September 2005.
Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov first mooted the trilateral relationship between India, China and Russia during a visit to New Delhi in 1998.
The first summit meeting among the leaders of India, Russia and China took place on July 17, 2006, in St Petersburg on the sidelines of the meetings among G-8 and outreach countries.
Oct 24, 2007
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED
Intellectual fallacies of the 'war on terror'
By Chalmers Johnson
http://www.atimes. com/atimes/ Middle_East/ IJ24Ak01. html
(This essay reviews The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response
to Terror by Stephen Holmes.)
There are many books entitled A Guide for the Perplexed, including
Moses Maimonides' 12th century treatise on Jewish law and E F
Schumacher's 1977 book on how to think about science. Book titles
cannot be copyrighted. A Guide for the Perplexed might therefore be
a better title for Stephen Holmes' new book than the one he chose,
The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response to Terror. In his
perhaps overly clever conception, the matador is the terrorist
leadership of al-Qaeda, taunting a maddened United States into an
ultimately fatal reaction. But do not let the title stop you from
reading the book. Holmes has written a powerful and philosophically
erudite survey of what we t hink we understand about the 9/11
attacks - and how and why the United States has magnified many times
over the initial damage caused by the terrorists.
Stephen Holmes is a law professor at New York University. In The
Matador's Cape, he sets out to forge an understanding - in an
intellectual and historical sense, not as a matter of journalism or
of partisan politics - of the Iraq war, which he calls "one of the
worst (and least comprehensible) blunders in the history of American
foreign policy" (p 230). His modus operandi is to survey in depth
approximately a dozen influential books on post-Cold War
international politics to see what light they shed on America's
missteps. I will touch briefly on the books he chooses for
dissection, highlighting his essential thoughts on each of them.
Holmes' choice of books is interesting. Many of the authors he
focuses on are American conservatives or neoconservatives, which is
reasonable since they are the ones who caused the debacle. He avoids
progressive or left-wing writers, and none of his choices are from
Metropolitan Books' American Empire Project. (Disclosure: This
review was written before I read Holmes' review of my own book,
Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, in the October 29
issue of The Nation.)
He concludes: "Despite a slew of carefully researched and insightful
books on the subject, the reason why the United States responded to
the al-Qaeda attack by invading Iraq remains to some extent an
enigma" (p 3). Nonetheless, his critiques of the books he has chosen
are so well done and fair that they constitute one of the best
introductions to the subject. They also have the advantage in
several cases of making it unnecessary to read the original.
Holmes interrogates his subjects cleverly. His main questions and
the key books he dissects for each of them are:
Did Islamic religious extremism cause 9/11? Here he supplies his own
independent analysis and conclusion (to which I turn below).
Why did American military preeminence breed delusions of
omnipotence, as exemplified in Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power:
America and Europe in the New World Order (Knopf, 2003)? While not
persuaded by Kagan's portrayal of the United States as "Mars" and
Europe as "Venus", Holmes takes Kagan's book as illustrative of
neoconservative thought on the use of force in international
politics: "Far from guaranteeing an unbiased and clear-eyed view of
the terrorist threat, as Kagan contends, American military
superiority has irredeemably skewed the country's view of the enemy
on the horizon, drawing the United States, with appalling
consequences, into a gratuitous, cruel, and unwinnable conflict in
the Middle East." (p 72)
How was the war lost, as analyzed in Cobra II: The Inside Story of
the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard
Trainor (Pantheon, 2006)? Holmes regards this book by Gordon, the
military correspondent of the New York Times, and Trainor, a retired
Marine Corps lieutenant general, as the best treatment of the
military aspects of the disaster, down to and including US envoy L
Paul Bremer's disbanding of the Iraqi military. I would argue that
Fiasco (Penguin 2006) by the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks is more
comprehensive, clearer-eyed, and more critical.
How did a tiny group of individuals, with eccentric theories and
reflexes, recklessly compound the country's post-9/11 security
nightmare? Here Holmes considers James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans:
The History of Bush's War Cabinet (Viking, 2004). One of Mann's more
original insights is that the neocons in the Bush administration
were so bewitched by Cold War thinking that they were simply
incapable of grasping the new realities of the post-Cold War
world. "In Iraq, alas, the lack of a major military rival excited
some aging hardliners into toppling a regime that they did not have
the slightest clue how to replace ... We have only begun to witness
the long-term consequences of their ghastly misuse of unaccountable
power". (p 106).
What roles did Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld play in the Bush administration, as captured in
Michael Mann's Incoherent Empire (Verso, 2003)? According to Holmes,
Mann's work "repays close study, even by readers who will not find
its perspective altogether congenial or convincing". He argues that
perhaps Mann's most important contribution, even if somewhat
mechanically put, is to stress the element of bureaucratic politics
in Cheney's and Rumsfeld's manipulation of the neophyte Bush: "The
outcome of inter- and intra-agency battles in Washington, DC,
allotted disproportionate influence to the fatally blurred
understanding of the terrorist threat shared by a few highly placed
and shrewd bureaucratic infighters. Rumsfeld and Cheney controlled
the military; and when they were given the opportunity to rank the
country's priorities in the war on terror, they assigned paramount
importance to those specific threats that could be countered
effectively only by the government agency over which they happened
to preside" (p 107).
Why did the US decide to search for a new enemy after the Cold War,
as argued by an old cold warrior, Samuel Huntington, in The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Simon and Schuster,
1996)? It is not clear why Holmes included Huntington's 11-year-old
treatise on "Allah made them do it" in his collection of books on
post-Cold War international politics except as an act of obeisance
to establishmentarian - and especially Council-on-Foreign- Relations -
thinking. Holmes regards Huntington's work as a "false template"
and calls it misleading. Well before 9/11, many critics of
Huntington's concept of "civilization" had pointed out that there is
insufficient homogeneity in Christianity, Islam, or the other great
religions for any of them to replace the position vacated by the
Soviet Union. As Holmes remarks, Huntington "finds homogeneity
because he is looking for homogeneity" (p 136).
What role did left-wing ideology play in legitimizing the war on
terror, as seen by Samantha Power in A Problem from Hell: America
and the Age of Genocide (Basic, 2002). As Holmes acknowledges, "The
humanitarian interventionists rose to a superficial prominence in
the 1990s largely because of a vacuum in US foreign-policy thinking
after the end of the Cold War ... Their influence was small,
however, and after 9/11, that influence vanished altogether." He
nonetheless takes up the anti-genocide activists because he suspects
that, by making a rhetorically powerful case for casting aside
existing decision-making rules and protocols, they may have
emboldened the Bush administration to follow suit and fight
the "evil" of terrorism outside the constitution and the law. The
idea that Power was an influence on Cheney and Rumsfeld may seem a
stretch - they were, after all, doing what they had always wanted to
do - but Holmes' argument that "a savvy pro-war party may
successfully employ humanitarian talk both to gull the wider public
and to silence potential critics on the liberal side" (p 157) is
worth considering.
How did pro-war liberals help stifle national debate on the wisdom
of the Iraq war, as illustrated by Paul Berman in Power and the
Idealists (Soft Skull Press, 2005)? Wildly overstating his
influence, Holmes writes, Berman, a regular columnist for The New
Republic, "first tried to convince us that the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, far from being a tribal war over scarce land and water, is
part of the wider spiritual war between liberalism and apocalyptic
irrationalism, not worth distinguishing too sharply from the
conflict between America and al-Qaeda. He then attempted to show
that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden represented two 'branches'
of an essentially homogeneous extremism." (p 181) Berman, Holmes
points out, conflated anti-terrorism with anti-fascism in order to
provide a foundation for the neologism "Islamo-fascism. " His chief
reason for including Berman is that Holmes wants to address the
views of religious fundamentalists in their support of the war on
terrorism.
How did democratization at the point of an assault rifle become
America's mission in the world, as seen by the apostate
neoconservative Francis Fukuyama in America at the Crossroads:
Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (Yale University
Press, 2006)? Holmes is interested in Fukuyama, the
neoconservatives' perennial sophomore, because he offers an
insider's insights into the chimerical neocon "democratization"
project for the Middle East.
Fukuyama argues that democracy is the most effective antidote to the
kind of Islamic radicalism that hit the United States on September
11, 2001. He contends that the root of Islamic rebellion is to be
found in the savage and effective repression of protestors - many of
whom have been driven into exile - in places like Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, and Pakistan. Terrorism is not the enemy, merely a tactic
Islamic radicals have found exceptionally effective. Holmes writes
of Fukuyama's argument, "[T]o recognize that America's fundamental
problem is Islamic radicalism, and that terrorism is only a symptom,
is to invite a political solution. Promoting democracy is just such
a political solution." (p 209)
The problem, of course, is that not even the neocons are united on
promoting democracy; and, even if they were, they do not know how to
go about it. Fukuyama himself pleads for "a dramatic
demilitarization of American foreign policy and a re-emphasis on
other types of policy instruments. " The Pentagon, in addition to its
other deficiencies, is poorly positioned and incorrectly staffed to
foster democratic transitions.
Why is the contemporary American antiwar movement so anemic, as seen
through the lens of history by Geoffrey Stone in Perilous Times:
Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on
Terrorism (W W Norton, 2004)? Holmes has nothing but praise for
Stone's history of expanded executive discretion in wartime. A key
question raised by Stone is why the American public has not been
more concerned with what happened in Iraq at Abu Ghraib prison and
in the wholesale destruction of the Sunni city of Fallujah. As
Holmes sees it, the Bush administration, at least in this one area,
was adept at subverting public protest. Among the more important
lessons George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, and
others learned from the Vietnam conflict, he writes, was that if you
want to suppress domestic questioning of foreign military
adventures, then eliminate the draft, create an all-volunteer force,
reduce domestic taxes, and maintain a false prosperity based on
foreign borrowing.
How did the embracing of American unilateralism elevate the Office
of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of State, as put
into perspective by John Ikenberry in After Victory: Institutions,
Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars
(Princeton University Press, 2001)? This book is Holmes' oddest
choice - a dated history from an establishmentarian point of view of
the international institutions created by the United States after
World War II, including the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund, and NATO, all of which Ikenberry, a prominent academic
specialist in international relations, applauds. Holmes agrees that,
during the Cold War, the United States ruled largely through
indirection, using seemingly impartial international institutions,
and eliciting the cooperation of other nations. He laments the
failure to follow this proven formula in the post-9/11 era, which
led to the eclipse of the State Department by the Defense
Department, an institution hopelessly ill-suited for diplomatic and
nation-building missions.
Why do we battle lawlessness with lawlessness (for example, by
torturing prisoners) and concentrate extra-constitutiona l authority
in the hands of the president, as expounded by John Yoo in The
Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After
9/11 (University of Chicago Press, 2005)? In this final section,
Holmes puts on his hat as the law professor he is and takes on
George W Bush's and Alberto Gonzales' in-house legal counsel, the
University of California, Berkeley law professor John Yoo, who
authored the "torture memos" for them, denied the legality of the
Geneva Conventions, and elaborated a grandiose view of the
president's war-making power. Holmes wonders, "Why would an aspiring
legal scholar labor for years to develop and defend a historical
thesis that is manifestly untrue? What is the point and what is the
payoff? That is the principal mystery of Yoo's singular book.
Characteristic of The Powers of War and Peace is the anemic
relations between the evidence adduced and the inferences drawn."
(p. 291)
Holmes then points out that Yoo is a prominent member of the
Federalist Society, an association of conservative Republican
lawyers who claim to be committed to recovering the original
understanding of the constitution and which includes several
Republican appointees to the current Supreme Court. His conclusion
on Yoo and his fellow neocons is devastating: "[I]f the misbegotten
Iraq war proves anything, it is the foolhardiness of allowing an
autistic clique that reads its own newspapers and watches its own
cable news channel to decide, without outsider input, where to
expend American blood and treasure - that is, to decide which
looming threats to stress and which to downplay or ignore." (p. 301)
Is Islam the culprit or merely a distraction?
In addition to these broad themes, Holmes investigates hidden
agendas and their distorting effects on rational policy-making. Some
of these are: Cheney's desire to expand executive power and weaken
congressional oversight; Rumsfeld's schemes to field-test his theory
that in modern warfare speed is more important than mass; the plans
by some of Cheney's and Rumsfeld's advisers to improve the security
situation of Israel; the administration' s desire to create a new set
of permanent US military bases in the Middle East to protect the US
oil supply in case of a collapse of the Saudi monarchy; and the
desire to invade Iraq and thereby avoid putting all the blame for
9/11 on al-Qaeda - because to do so would have involved admitting
administration negligence and incompetence during the first nine
months of 2001 and, even worse, that Clinton was right in warning
Bush and his top officials that the main security threat to the
United States was a potential al-Qaeda attack or attacks.
This is not the place to attempt a comprehensive review of Holmes'
detailed critiques. For that, one should buy and read his book. Let
me instead dwell on three themes that I think illustrate his insight
and originality.
Holmes rejects any direct connection between Islamic religious
extremism and the 9/11 attacks, although he recognizes that Islamic
vilification of the United States and other Western powers is often
expressed in apocalyptically religious language. "Emphasizing
religious extremism as the motivation for the [9/11] plot, whatever
it reveals," he argues, "… terminates inquiry prematurely,
encouraging us to view the attack ahistorically as an expression
of 'radical Salafism', a fundamentalist movement within Islam that
allegedly drives its adherents to homicidal violence against
infidels." (p 2) This approach, he points out, is distinctly
tautological: "Appeals to social norms or a culture of martyrdom are
not very helpful ... They are tantamount to saying that suicidal
terrorism is caused by a proclivity to suicidal terrorism." (p 20)
Instead, he suggests, "The mobilizing ideology behind 9/11 was not
Islam, or even Islamic fundamentalism, but rather a specific
narrative of blame" (p 63). He insists on putting the focus on the
actual perpetrators, the 19 men who executed the attacks in New York
and Washington - 15 Saudi Arabians, two citizens of the United Arab
Emirates, one Egyptian, and one Lebanese. None of them was
particularly religious. Three were living together in Hamburg,
Germany, where they did appear to have become more interested in
Islam than they had been in their home countries. Mohamed Atta, the
leader of the group, age 33 on 9/11, had Egyptian and German degrees
in architecture and city plan.
