Blowback against Blowback

I published a post on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 explaining my thoughts on why people became so radicalised that they supported Al Qaeda and even became part of it. I emphasised the importance of cultural dissonance, i.e., feeling apart from a culture. I’m not going to go over the empirical support for my position again – I wanted to give more empirical evidence against a position I dismissed. I did not ignore foreign policy in explanation, but I did say it was neither necessary nor sufficient for terrorism.

The assumption behind thinking foreign policy leads people to lose their morality and start supporting a group that blows people in order to implement regimes that would make whole races and genders second class citizens is that they become aggrieved. This is typically used in the Palestinian context as well: what do you expect the Palestinians to do after their homes have been demolished and their cousins killed? What do you expect the Iraqis to do when the U.S occupies their land?

This assumption is wrong for multiple reasons – it plays on racist assumptions of Arabs as agents moved by external factors. One can point to several societies, including our own, where this faux analysis is not applied – even if there have been comparable or worse atrocities. This post is aimed at addressing that argument so I don’t have to repeat myself. As most of the arguments are about Hamas and Al Qaeda, those are the groups I’ll be addressing.

The Palestinians vs. Hamas

Starting with the Palestinians, this extends not only to IDF attacks but to Israeli policy – like the blockade. Except, there is no empirical proof for it: the blockade was implemented in 2007 – and yet, “according to a variety of polls, support for Hamas has steadily dropped since... its election in January 2006. [P]ublic support for Hamas has not just dropped in the West Bank but in its hometurf of Gaza” (Myths, Illusions and Peace, Ross and Makovsky, p.263).

This result shouldn’t be surprising – it was only after Hamas took over the Gaza strip, carried out a purge of Fatah members and usurped the executive in Gaza that Israel imposed the blockade. Aside from the social and economic woes that followed, this was an illegitimate move: often it is pointed out that Hamas is democratically elected – but this ignores everything that happened the day after the election. Hamas won the legislative elections and then proceeded to take control of the executive functions of government in Gaza – something they were not elected to do. The conflict that broke out between Fatah and Hamas in 2006 led the latter to go after Fatah officials and throwing them off buildings (for a full account of why Hamas took over and initiated a power grab, see here).

Even then, ignoring all of that (which is sufficient to lose all democratic legitimacy), elections have not been held for the legislative or executive body since 2006. Even when the President, who has the right to call them under Palestinian law, calls them, Hamas has consistently opposed them. Israel’s blockade was too restrictive before 2010 and that was wrong – now, the security blockade in place would not be there (as it wasn’t when the PA controlled the area) if there was not a security threat. Palestinians very likely see that – which explains the Palestinians’ continuing opposition to Hamas. Hamas and the other factions have also fired rockets which have led to Israeli response – often in their own areas – which probably explains why 70% of Palestinians want them disarmed.

And this brings us to violence in the Israel-Palestinian conflict – does it really increase radicalisation and lead to more violence? Again, the empirical support is simply not there. Before I get on to the academic literature, I just want to give one example of one set of polling. Operation Cast Lead was carried out from December 2008 to January 2009 – it’s worth looking at polling before and after the attacks to see the support for Hamas. In a December 2008 Near East Consulting poll (before Cast Lead started), support for Hamas was low: Hamas would only have won 10% in the presidential elections, 11% in legislative elections and when asked to respond to the statement, “Some believe that Hamas will win the next election,” a majority obviously disagreed.

In the next Near Consulting Poll in March 2009, the results had not changed much at all: 11% believed Hamas only represented them, they would have received 14% of the vote in presidential elections and they would have won 16% in the legislative elections. Operation Cast Lead seems to have no negligible effect on supporting terrorist organisations. This also explains why Hamas opposes elections: it would get blown out of Palestinian politics.

And this is a consistent finding in the academic literature. In a Journal of Public Economics article, Jaeger et al (2012) investigate “effects of violence on the political preferences of an aggrieved population.” The results are robust and show that “the overall effect of Palestinian fatalities is not statistically significant.” And the same results apply for not just supporting radical groups but their attacks on civilians too. From Haaretz:

According to the poll released by the JMCC [in 2011], since the Gaza war the ratio of Palestinians who opposed "military operations" against Israel rose from 38.1% in January of 2009 to 51.8% in April of 2011 (my emphasis).

Indeed, Palestinians are no more likely to support attacks on civilians than Israelis (in fact, across the Middle East, attacking civilians is a minority position). At the risk of pushing my point again – the same is true for the “killing one of them makes more” argument. Jaeger and Paserman (2008) examine the statistical evidence and conclude “the direction of causality... runs only from violence committed by Palestinians to violence committed by Israelis, and not vice versa.” That is, Israeli casualties lead to Palestinian casualties – but Palestinians casualties do not lead to Israeli casualties. Again, this really shouldn’t be surprising: Israeli counter-terrorism policy through targeted assassination, wide ranging military action is designed to deter and comes in response to terror.

Again, Operation Cast Lead is illustrative of this policy. This came after Hamas first escalated violence in November during the ceasefire and then refused to sign up to another one (see this post for a detailed analysis of the ceasefire). Israel responded – and the result was not more violence:

In fact, post Cast Lead yielded Israel’s “quietest year” in a decade: there was a 90% reduction in the first year and even at its highest levels, rocket fire has not matched even a third of 2007 levels. Something that is even more interesting is how much the circle of violence argument gets it the wrong way around. Hamas, after Cast Lead started patrolling the areas to make sure rockets weren’t fired. They have fired rockets since Operation Cast Lead, but the deterrence – not radicalisation - effect is clear from the graph.

Al Qaeda and its allies

I have covered some of the ground on why foreign policy is not the reason for support for Al Qaeda. Briefly, again, the vast majority of Muslims across the Middle East don’t like Al Qaeda. This gives prima facie evidence to the position I’m advocating: if foreign policy is the cause, why do we not see a wide spread response? To make an analogy: conservatives often argue that pornography leads to violence (in fact, it does the opposite) – but surely, there can be no causal connection by the simple fact that most people can enjoy pornography without grabbing an axe. Even in the West – just think about: a lot of people oppose American foreign policy. They don’t start jumping for AK47s and start supporting Al Qaeda.

And again, the academic support for what I am saying is clear (the support for what is the cause is in the aforementioned 9/11 post). Robert Pape claims to have evidence that occupation leads to suicide terrorism – except his thesis has been thoroughly discredited: the statistics are selective, the thesis inconsistent and stretched to find America at odds. Max Boot has discredited his “study” enough and I would have nothing to add to continue to talk about Pape’s polemics. I would just give one example from Boot of why Pape’s thesis is nonsensical. Over 12,000 people have been killed in Pakistan by Islamist terrorists – and yet there is no occupation. Pape’s answer should have everyone in hysterics: “the alliance between Pakistan and the United States evolved into—what is better termed—an indirect occupation.”

The drone programme also provides another opportunity to put the hypothesis to the test. I have already quoted two studies on how the drone programme has not led to “blowback.” The Washington Post recently claimed that the drone campaign in Yemen is “increasing sympathy for al-Qaeda-linked militants and driving tribesmen to join a network linked to terrorist plots against the United States.” This was based on “20 interviews with tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from four provinces.”

Except, this does not seem to be the end of the matter – Christopher Swift disagrees in an article published in Foreign Affairs. Swift interviewed “40 interviews with tribal leaders, Islamist politicians, Salafist clerics, and other sources.” His conclusions are vastly different from the Washington Post’s:

As a group, they were older, more conservative, and more skeptical of U.S. motives. They were less urban, less wealthy, and substantially less secular. But to my astonishment, none of the individuals I interviewed drew a causal relationship between U.S. drone strikes and al Qaeda recruiting. Indeed, of the 40 men in this cohort, only five believed that U.S. drone strikes were helping al Qaeda more than they were hurting it.

Both studies are limited because they are based on interviews not data on recruitment, attacks and American drone activity. That said, if I had to choose one of these two, I would naturally go with the study with the larger sample. So do I think that “when a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen [or anywhere else mentioned above], the father will go to war with you, guaranteed”? Nope. 

Seumas Milne on Drones

I thought I’d get back into blogging with an easy post. It’s quite easy for me to find an article by Seumas Milne and quickly fisk it in my head – not because of any great skill that I have but simply because the man is a propagandist. His articles are misleading, filled with falsehoods and driven by an ideological zeal that means almost every single paragraph is filled with multiple lines of crap.

So, I thought I’d start with Milne’s latest article on drone strikes. For convenience, I’ve moved some of the paragraphs around where I can respond to them together. I’ve had to cut out some of the stuff because of space – but I’ve addressed all his substantive points. Milne writes: 

More than a decade after George W Bush launched it, the "war on terror" was supposed to be winding down. US military occupation of Iraq has ended and Nato is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as the carnage continues. But another war – the undeclared drone war that has already killed thousands – is now being relentlessly escalated. 

Except that nobody expected it to wind down. All the statements of the officials at the time and since point to a long, ideological drive against Al Qaeda and its allies. On September 17^th 2001, President Bush told Pentagon officials that “It's going to take a long time to win this war.” On September 20^th, the President said “this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion” but a “lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen.” 

Donald Rumsfeld stated just 8 days later that Americans should “forget about 'exit strategies'; we're looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines." Robert Gates stated “many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity” referring to it as a “generational campaign” that Vice President Dick Cheney said the War “like other great duties in history, it will require decades of patient effort.”

Milne refers to the “carnage continuing” in Afghanistan. This is arguably untrue: NATO figures show that there was a 9% reduction in violence throughout the country and in areas where the fighting increased, NATO had gone on the offensive. Civilian deaths in the last 4 months have dropped 21%. There was a 2011 UN report which suggested a significant rise but their figures included arrests, searches and “intimidation” as “security incidents.” This is not to suggest that everything is fine or the NATO figures are sacrosanct but that it’s not as one-sided as Milne always argues. 

Milne is also wrong by calling the drone campaign “undeclared.” John Brennan, an Obama official, clearly stated that “the United States Government conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qa’ida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones.” The administration has not only acknowledged the policy, but defended it many times. 

From Pakistan to Somalia, CIA-controlled pilotless aircraft rain down Hellfire missiles on an ever-expanding hit list of terrorist suspects – they have already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians in the process. Since 2004, between 2,464 and 3,145 people are reported to have been killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan, of whom up to 828 were civilians (535 under Obama) and 175 children. Some Pakistani estimates put the civilian death toll much higher – plausibly, given the tendency to claim as "militants" victims later demonstrated to be nothing of the sort.

Yes, and the loss of civilian life is regrettable – but that does not make the campaign illegitimate. Al Qaeda operates in areas all over the world, they pose a threat not only to the regimes in which they live but to the West (more on the effectiveness of the strikes below). The official policy of the White House is that there must be a “near certainty” of no civilian deaths – or they must gain President Obama’s approval. Admittedly, I have a problem with the fact that the administration considers all men of military age combatants. 

However, even when we look to the independent figures for the civilians killed, the number is remarkably low (keeping in mind that when operating in Pakistan, the population is quite dense). At the low end, the Long War Journal has 138 civilians being killed from 2006-2012. According to Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann who use “reliable press accounts” 80% of those killed have been militants and 2010 that figure rose to 95%. 

At least 15 drone strikes have been launched in Yemen this month, as many as in the whole of the past decade, killing dozens; while in Pakistan, a string of US attacks has been launched against supposed "militant" targets in the past week, incinerating up to 35 people and hitting a mosque and a bakery.

Yes – but killing who? In Yemen, the civilian death rate in 56 out of more 240 militants killed according to the Long War Journal. The example of the mosque does nothing to further Milne’s point either. As the report which he links to notes, “Uzbek insurgents made up the majority of the fatalities from the strike.” Meaning that like other terrorists around the world, they are using places of worship, civilian centres as a shield for their own military purpose. Milne’s unsurprising response is not to attack those individuals, but the United States. 

The US president insisted recently that the civilian death toll was not a "huge number". Not on the scale of Iraq, perhaps, where hundreds of thousands were killed; or Afghanistan, where tens of thousands have died. But they gruesomely include dozens killed in follow-up attacks after they had gone to help victims of earlier strikes – as well as teenagers like Tariq Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani boy decapitated in a strike last November after he had travelled to Islamabad to protest against drones. 

Yes – but who is killing in Iraq and Afghanistan? According to a study by King’s College London looking at civilian deaths from 2003-2008 concludes that of the 92,000 civilians deaths recorded by Iraq Body Count, 12% were attributable to coalition forces. 74% were carried out by “unknown perpertrators” described as “are those who target civilians (i.e., no identifiable military target is present), while appearing indistinguishable from civilians.” This classing encompasses “suicide bombers... sectarian combatants and Anti-Coalition combatants.” A further 11% were carried out by identifiable “anti-coalition forces.”

In Afghanistan, “tens of thousands” of civilians have not died. At the high end, the figure is 14,700 and the low end is 12,500. And again – every single report, every single statistic notes that almost all of these are killed by the Taliban or its allies. Civilian deaths caused by pro-government forces decreased by 24% from 2009-2010, making them responsible for 15% of civilian casualties. UN figures show that only 9% of the civilians killed in 2012 were attributable to coalition forces. 

By the way, Tariq Khan was killed by a drone strike but according to American officials, he was a militant. Is this true? I don’t know but I think I’d tell my readers about it – even if I was going to dismiss it. 

But, as the destabilisation of Pakistan and growth of al-Qaida in Yemen shows, the impact remains the same. The drone war is a predatory war on the Muslim world, which is feeding hatred of the US – and fuelling terror, not fighting it. 

Of course Milne provides no empirical evidence for such a claim. Johnston and Sarbahi (2012) in their analysis of the relevant data find that “drone strikes are associated with decreases in both the frequency and thelethality of militant attacks overall and in IED and suicide attacks specifically.” Jaeger and Siddique (2011) find "strong negative impacts of unsuccessful drone strikes on Taliban violence in Pakistan, showing thedeterrent effects are quite strong." 

If, like Milne, you like anecdotal evidence – then there is much of it. Tariq Azam (Taliban official) has publically told the press that meetings in Pakistan have been driven underground. The same report notes that the terrorists now suspect eachother of being spies. Pakistani General Mehmood Ghayur “acknowledged the effectiveness of the American drone strikes against foreign militants” 

The day after last Friday's Houla massacre in Syria, eight members of one family were killed at home by a Nato air attack in eastern Afghanistan – one of many such atrocities barely registered in the western media. 

It says so much about Milne that he believes the intentional murder of 92 civilians by cutting their throats for the simple act of protesting an authoritarian is more newsworthy than the unintentional killing of 8 civilians. Both are tragic and should not have happened – but to condemn the press for allegedly not covering it (they did) and suggesting an equivalence is flat out wrong. It goes without saying that these civilian deaths in Afghanistan have not been confirmed by a UN monitoring body (as in Houla) but an Afghan official (which NATO is taking seriously).

The US's decision to step up the drone war again in Pakistan, opposed by both government and parliament in Islamabad as illegal and a violation of sovereignty, reflects its fury at the jailing of a CIA agent involved in the Bin Laden hunt and Pakistan's refusal to reopen supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Those routes were closed in protest at the US killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, for which Washington still refuses to apologise.

But Pakistan’s consent has always been elusive. The Prime Minister was quoted as saying in 2008 that “I don't care if they do it, as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it." President Zardari has also said that “Kill the seniors. Collateral damages worries you Americans. It does not worry me." Milne’s own paper alleged a secret deal about “violations of sovereignty” last year.


It is true that there have been more vocal condemnations and demands to stop the strikes in the last year. However, as the Associated Press noted there are still “mixed signals.” The Pakistani government, for example, qualified their condemnation by saying it “should be seen in light of the presence of Islamist militants on Pakistani soil.” The AP goes on to say that “many analysts believe some in the government still support the program at some level.”


But lets assume all elements of the Pakistani government want the drone strikes stopped unequivocally – so what? The strikes are significant in decreasing the threat that Al Qaeda and it allies proposes. If Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then the United States and its allies should not have to justify themselves to anyone. 


Milne mentions the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers. Firstly, before the incident with the 24 deaths, there was a similar incident the previous year. In that situation, a joint investigation found NATO at fault – and NATO apologised and supply routes were re-opened. In this case, an American investigation found no fault. It might be that the investigation is wrong – but Milne doesn’t even discuss the possibility. Also, he refers to the “US killing” – but doesn’t mention the context: a joint US-Afghan contingent. According to an Afghan official – it was the Afghan personnel who requested the strike after being fired on. 

Lawyers representing victims' families are now preparing legal actionagainst the British government – which carries out its own drone attacks in Afghanistan – for taking part in war crimes by passing GCHQ intelligence to the CIA for its "targeted killings".

Of course Milne has to involve Britain in some way for these apparent “war crimes.” Yet, he provides no evidence whatsoever to support his claim. In fact if you click on his second link in this paragraph, the care the British military takes in avoiding casualties is shown. The link states the following of several different operations:

[1] Over a period of approximately 8 hours the Reaper crew maintained ‘eyes on’ before eventually seizing the opportunity to strike [a “high value insurgent”] when there was no risk of civilian casualties or collateral damage. 

[2] The crew spotted 2 civilians, one of whom was identified as a child… Realising the danger the crew diverted the missile towards an area of scrub land where it detonated harmlessly

[3] Reaper released weapon against fast-moving target, firing on friendly forces – however weapon diverted to avoid civilian casualties

This is Milne’s own link. There is one incident listed where 4 Afghan civilians were killed but that was in targeting “two insurgents” and “a significant quantity of explosives being carried on the trucks.” And so far as involvement with the Americans goes – there is no reason why we should shy away. These strikes are effective and have low civilian casualties.

Don't Mention the War

I have never thought it helpful to refer to a "war" on terror, any more than to a war on drugs. For one thing that legitimizes the terrorists as warriors; for another thing terrorism is a technique, not a state. Moreover terrorism will continue in some form whatever the outcome, if there is one, of such a "war".

-          Eliza Manningham-Buller, Former Director General of MI5

I disagree. 9/11 was a criminal and military act which could only be responded to with a military response. There is no contradiction; something can be criminal and it can be a war crime.  After 9/11, given the Taliban’s intransigence and alignment with Al Qaeda, the only way to remove that that threat was war. Afghanistan was and remains a war of self-defence against a group of transnational networked criminal terrorists. (It’s actually noteworthy that despite her insistence that 9/11 was a crime, Baroness Maninghmam-Buller states that ‘we had discussed the near-certainty of a war in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda bases there and drive out the terrorists and their sponsors, the Taleban. We all saw that war in Afghanistan as necessary.’)

However, one must take issue with the concept of a ‘War on Terror’ – or Global War on Terror (GWOT) - not because it gives them ‘legitimacy’ as some have supposed (when they fought in Afghanistan in the 80s, when they attacked Americans pre-2001 – they thought they were warriors). The criticism that the term is a tactic and therefore cannot be fought against is similarly misguided for reasons that I have blogged before: Al Qaeda’s ends are terror: the use of violence to stop non-combatants from that which they have a right to do. A Talibanised Caliphate is exactly that: persecuting those of other religions, stopping women from going to school, stopping people from having the right to self-determination.

It is misleading in a sense because it is simply not a war in the sense of a twentieth century war. We do not live under a constant state of fear, we are unlikely to be bombed, we are unlikely to have parades when ‘victory’ comes. To label it a war is to underestimate the role of the police, security and intelligence services in countering terrorism. But this is simply part of the evolving role of warfare: technology means that terrorists can no longer handles by just military means. Drone attacks carried out from Langley are part of warfare – it matters not that they are carried out by men in suits who drive home.  And even though our reliance on said services has increased – it does not change the fact that we have a prolonged military confrontation for a political purpose. 

My gripe with the ‘War on Terror’ is that it is simply too decisive and does not give us a clear goal. It is decisive because whether we like it or not, there are different definitions of terrorism. Instead of bringing people and nations together it maintains divisions. A better formulation is the War against Al Qaeda and its allies – simply because it is a call that people can get behind: support for Al Qaeda in the Arab world is low and decreasing. Peter Bergen sums up this approach by taking issue with another one of Bush’s phrases:

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," said Bush. An alternative formulation could have been "If you are against the terrorists, then you are with us," and that formulation would have vastly increased the number of potential allies of the United States.

Most importantly, this also allows for us to have a clear goal: the paralysation of Al Qaeda and its allies. A War on Terror – even though, as I’ve argued, makes sense because for Al Qaeda terror is an end, does not embody that fight.  A ‘War on Terror’ goes beyond on strategic resources: we will not be able, anytime soon, to destroy the nations which use violence to stop the right of self-determination. It goes beyond what Al Qaeda is – to nations like North Korea and Saudi Arabia and organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah. It is so broad as to include an ideology. And that is inaccurate for what we are fighting in those fights with Al Qaeda and its allies. President Obama and his administration have got it right. This is an excerpt from an AFP report:

President Barack Obama is replacing the "global war on terror" with a new US strategy more narrowly focused on Al-Qaeda and relying more on a broader effort to engage the Muslim world... "It plays into the misleading and dangerous notion that the US is somehow in conflict with the rest of the world," he said. In a question and answer session, Brennan suggested that the new administration was prepared to reach out to groups like the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah that move away from their "terrorist core."

President Obama in a speech has even used something precisely like the recommended formulation above in a speech he gave in 2009 as part of his strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The single greatest threat to that future comes from al Qaeda and their extremist allies, and that is why we must stand together.... So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future... And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you.

This is despite the fact that Obama agrees that we are ‘at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.’ Indeed, Obama’s foreign policy in attacking Al Qaeda is better than Bush’s in that it has increased drone attacks, carried out raids and arrests against Al Qaeda and has increased the troop presence in Afghanistan. President Obama is clearly not a man who disagrees there is a war going on. 

Enemies of Peace: Thunderous Peanuts?

Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,--

Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,

On pain of torture, from those bloody hands

Throw your mistemper'd weapons to the ground,

And hear the sentence of your moved prince.

-          The Prince, ‘Romeo  and Juliet’, William Shakespeare

Al Qaeda vs. Peanuts

There are several arguments made about terrorism and the threat from terrorism that I’d like to address in the post. But, starting with definitions: terrorism is the deliberate use of violence against non-combatants so that they are stopped from that which they have a right to do, for political ends. In a way, people have the right to life and therefore all terrorist activity that leads to death is self-evidently terrorism – but it also applies to other things: the right to speak freely, the right to vote for one’s own government. It’s not limited to religious people or even non-religious people. It might seem that this is limited to a technique but I think there is a persuasive argument to be made that it is also an end for groups like Al Qaeda.

But I first want to address another argument: those that compare the threat to terrorism and compare it with things like lightning strikes and peanut allergies. What this misses is that terrorism affects our relationship with state and society. The best way to illustrate this is through a hypothetical: there is an administration which supports a controversial war and terrorists target civilian infrastructure inside that country. Three days later, when there are elections, despite what people think about the government’s economic, social and domestic policy, they are more likely to vote against that administration. Despite that person having the right to vote on those grounds, the threat of violence – of terrorism – has meant that the citizen can no longer exercise that right.

This isn’t my argument, Phillip Bobbit made the argument about the Spanish elections after the Madrid bombings in his book ‘Terror and Consent: Wars for the Twentieth Century’ stating

A vast majority of Spaniards opposed the [Iraq] intervention but a clear majority nevertheless supported the party in power... None of the other political issues – the economy, education, health, etc. – could be allowed to be decisive after the bombing. It was a sickening day for democracy...  (p.395)

And the reason I’m not using his example is that there seems to be evidence which shows that voters were driven by ‘their anger at the government's handling of the terrorist attacks.’ Nonetheless, terrorism clearly has the effect of changing the constitutional relationship of consent. Lawrence Wright notes that such withdrawal of consent has been used in the ‘Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua.’ More importantly, in the Middle East and South Asia it is apparent that such tactics are used: attacking girls going to school, killing people as they cast their vote – these not only affect the actions of those who directly suffer them but those who take steps away from doing what they have a right to do.

This is why terror is an end for Al Qaeda as well: they seek, both in Europe and the Middle East a ‘state of terror’ – that is exactly what their dogmatic ideals lead to: stopping girls from going to school, stopping self-determination, killing those who they disagree with – all backed up with the threat of violence.  In Europe, it means crippling not only choices but our decision to act in self-defence or for the good of the people in the Middle East.

Just as a further case study which was suggested by a good friend of mine: Israel. The effects of terrorism can be seen in several respects: firstly, those in the area of terrorism such as those who are affected by the rockets. Schools have had to remain closed because children would be exposed to rocket fire, 20% of citizens have moved, and a medical factory had to be closed because of rocket fire and people lose employment as a result. Peanuts do not have these effects and neither do homicides.

Secondly, in terms of a state response, there is usually a back lash that calls for action. Looking at it from a libertarian or selective left-wing position: these attacks are followed by a curb of consent by governments. Peanut and lightning related deaths do not lead to having to get a petition to protest outside KP or the overarching power to wiretap the clouds. Laws in Britain such as the heinous detention of foreign nationals, while struck down by the House of Lords, show that the threat from the state remains. There is empirical support for this view as well; using data from 111 countries, Dreher et al (2007) find terror 'diminishes governments’ respect for basic humanrights such as absence of extrajudicial killings, political imprisonment, and torture' and 'civil rights are also restricted as a consequence of terrorism.'

It is only with the hard work of our security services and military that such attacks are thwarted at home and abroad. And while we have not suffered such attacks, it is clear that the threat exists and thus must be avoided; to say it again: 12 attacks were thwarted between 2000-2009 on British soil and the threat remains substantial. Peanuts and lighting strikes do not pose such a threat to an open society where we can exercise our rights - and while it is fortunate that we have ‘only’ lost 4,873 people that does not change this fact. Indeed, Bruce Hoffman includes this in his definition of terrorism:

Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instil fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider “target audience”... Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale.

Al Qaeda vs. Other Terrorists

There are also misconceptions about the threat of different terrorist groups. Terrorism is by no means limited to one religious, social, political or national group but there is no doubt that for the United Kingdom, the threat comes primarily from Al Qaeda and its allies, i.e., Islamist terrorists.

It is often quoted that the vast majority of terrorist incidents in Europe comes from separatists but for as Andrew Gilligan of The Telegraph notes this is only really true for ‘two small regions of Europe (the Basque country and Corsica).’ And even then, in terms of deaths, 91% of the deaths are caused by Islamist terrorists across Europe. In the UK, there have been 138 convictions of Islamist terrorists, there have been 12 thwarted attacks including a plot to down 10 commercial airlines. According to MI5, ‘over 2,000 people in the UK pose a terrorist threat and in March 2005 it was estimated that there were up to 200 al-Qaeda trained operatives in the UK.’ In 2006, MI5 stated that they knew of 30 UK plots. And in case thats too much for you, just read this tweet from the Foreign Office.

This is not to say that we are all about to die from Islamist terrorism – when we all go out tomorrow, we are unlikely to die from a terrorist attack. But the threat remains and because of the effects of that threat it is something that requires resources and a place as one of the main facets of government.

There is also a further argument to be made – across Europe and United States – that a comparison cannot be made with Al Qaeda and its allies because they represent a new type of terrorism. Phillip Bobbit refers to this as ‘market state terrorism.’ The former foreign secretary David Miliband on Question Time stated that

Its not the IRA. This is a bigger and more different threat... They did not propagate a global vision, they did not have a global reach and the theological that Al Qaeda tried to engage with. Be wary of words like 'hype.' This was different.

There is simply no denying this: Al Qaeda has subsidiaries: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al-Shabab – and thats not to mention their allies in Europe. The substance of what Bobbitt says is important: they are global, decentralised and they cause a lot more deaths – and they intend to. As Brian Jenkins notes:

The worst incidents of terrorism in the 1970s caused fatalities in the tens. In the 1980s, fatalities were measured in the 100s. On September 11^th, fatalities ascended to the thousands – and the toll could easily be as higher. (Bobbitt, p.49)

Tony Blair was undoubtedly right when he said ‘Over 3,000 were killed, a horrific event. If these people could have killed 30,000, they would have done.’ Its really no surprise that Al Qaeda is actively going after a nuclear dirty bomb. And as crude as it is to suggest, larger or more frequent death tolls and attacks enhance the response to society in terms of consent. This is precisely why Islamist terrorism is such a threat: because of the intended fearful response it seeks. 

Why do they hate us?

And all this while I have been shopping, I have

Been let us say free

And do they hate me for it

Do they hate me

-          The Window, at the Moment of the Flame, Alicia Ostriker

I wasn’t intending on publishing this today but I thought today was a better day than any other. This is meant to provide an explanation as to why ‘they’ hate us – by which I mean, Al Qaeda and its allies. And hate encompasses those who actually hate us and those who take action against us; those like the 19 who flew planes into buildings and those who like Bin Laden supported them. Here is a basic overview of what follows:

1. It is wrong to make a distinction between our foreign policy and our values.
2. Once you accept this, it is clear that there are things we cannot negotiate on.
3. Even then, the foreign policy argument does not make sense by itself.
4. This is not to deny foreign policy as an important factor
5. The actual significant factor and the empirical support for this position
6. Conclusion; drawing multiple causes in separate contexts

1. I’ve written before that I don’t like the ‘foreign policy’ vs. ‘freedom’ debate because it presents a false dichotomy between our foreign policy and our values. This is leaving aside the language one uses to ‘explain’ these attacks. Its worth looking at Al Qaeda’s first attack in 1992: they targeted American soldiers in Yemen heading to Somalia as part of Operation Restore Hope: an effort to deliver humanitarian aid and food to a humanitarian disaster zone. The United Nations noted as a result of the intervention

UNITAF had deployed approximately 37,000 troops in southern and central Somalia, covering approximately 40 per cent of the country's territory. The presence and operations of UNITAF had a positive impact on the security situation in Somalia and on the effective delivery of humanitarian assistance.

2. This is precisely what I mean about the lack of conflation between foreign policies and values: is anyone seriously going to say we should not have intervened in Somalia because of this attack? Incidentally, the Al Qaeda subsidiary Al-Shabab maintains its ban on foreign aid despite the situation there.  In the same way, we have to look at the grievances of Al Qaeda to assess whether we really can adjust our foreign policy.

Al Qaeda’s goals aren’t hidden: they want to implement Talibanised regimes across the Middle East. When we intervene, yes, we do become targets but by not intervening, we merely allow the targets to be civilians in their home regimes. This is not suggest a benevolent intention in our foreign policy in toto, but it is sufficient enough to justify our actions.

3. Even then, talking about the higher echelons of Al Qaeda, the “first generation,” it is no use talking of Iraq or Afghanistan because they obviously happened before. Bin Laden was long committed to the ‘global jihad’ long before the settlement of American soldiers in Saudi Arabia and remained committed even after the withdrawal of American soldiers from Saudi Arabia (soldiers who were there by the way, to enforce a no fly zone so the Kurds would not be further brutalised by Saddam). I have even shown in a previous post that the 7/7 bombers were long militant before the Iraq war and in the case of some of them, before 9/11.

It should be clear that the dogmatic foreign policy explanation does not make sense: it does not explain the chronology of Islamist terrorism, it does not explain the lack of a widespread response, it does not explain why the response comes from those unaffected. It is not necessary or sufficient. It is simply illogical. As Roy poignantly asks, “if the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine are at the core of the radicalization, why are there virtually no Afghans, Iraqis or Palestinians among the terrorists?” Even internally, in Iraq, two-thirds of suicide bombers were not Iraqis. Al Qaeda is not even predominantly a response to Western forces, Max Boot points out that for Islamist terrorists in Iraq,

the vast majority of their victims were not Americans, Britons, or other “occupiers” but, rather, Iraqis: either members of the security forces or innocent bystanders. For many of the dead, their only crime was to be of the Shiite faith.

Indeed, it was further Western intervention in the form of the Surge that largely quelled violence in Iraq (see Linda Robinson or Kimberly Kagan – and even if one subscribes to the Douglas Ollivant’s view of the Surge, the argument still holds.).

4. For the second generation, I have previously stated that I believe Iraq to have given momentum to Al Qaeda and this isn’t really a controversial finding. Recently, the former head of MI5, Baroness Maningham-Buller stated in her appearance before the Iraq Inquiry:

Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a generation of young people who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as an attack on Islam. We were... overburdened with intelligence on a broad scale that was pretty well more than we could cope with in terms of plots, leads to plots and things that we needed to pursue.

She made similar remarks in her recent Reith Lecture. (See also the National Intelligence Estimate from 2006). Whats important here is exactly what she is saying; it radicalised people who saw our involvement in Afghanistan (and Iraq) as an attack on Islam. A literal reading would support the view that I take: namely, that it reinforced and increased the people who came to accept this view.

But importantly, Iraq is not the single or necessary or sufficient cause – even in the new generation: it requires something before, another factor. As Shiraz Maher, a former member of Hizb-ut Tahrir notes, ‘there will always be a grievance. And where there’s no grievance, Islamists manufacture a grievance’ to the end of their desired Caliphate.

This is to understate the effect of Iraq. It did lead to a rise in the risk we faced but for those who seek to attack us, it is merely part of their worldview. It is worldview that includes Afghanistan, Somalia, the existence of the state of Israel, the Danish cartoons, womens’ rights, human rights, humanitarian intervention in Libya and so on. None of these are these we can negotiate on. True, for the second generation, Iraq is one of the more significant factors but the key to their actions is that very worldview.

5. And that worldview is triggered by a feeling of domination and exclusion. Oliver Roy states that

they felt excluded from Western society... They find [a cause] in the dream of a virtual, universal ummah, the same way the ultraleftists of the 1970's (the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Italian Red Brigades) cast their terrorist actions in the name of the "world proletariat"... they are a lost generation, unmoored from traditional societies and cultures, frustrated by a Western society that does not meet their expectations.

It is a globalisation of ideas and human rights that penetrates through to certain alienated individuals. This is view echoed by Phillip Bobbitt, ‘[Al Qaeda’s] vision is a reaction to the globalisation of human rights-democracy, the rule of secular law, the protection of women’s rights.’ It is this that they find averse. Lawrence Wright expresses the point better:

This sense of displacement is also better understood as being marginal the culture... Because if you look at the recent plots in Britain, these were second and third generation British citizens. They were part of that culture but they had a feeling of alienation and marginality. Now, I don't see that as a clash of civilisation but a clash of identities within a civilisation.

Empirical support for this view is cited by Wright in the lecture cited above where he quotes an Egyptian study from the 70s. Further support is quoted below as part of the Prevent strategy. Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman also give support in their study of the process of radicalisation in UK Islamist terrorists provide six manifestation of radicalisation. One of which is the affiliation with a global Ummah at the expense of the West:

As homegrown terrorists radicalize, they often come to perceive an inherent schism between Islam and the West—believing that the two are at odds, and perhaps even incapable of coexistence. This perception can be expressed in a number of ways. In some cases, individuals attempt to isolate themselves from Western society physically. In others, these individuals will explain the perceived schism between Islam and the West to friends, family, or conspirators.

Indeed, five (including the quoted above) out of the six manifestations have nothing to do with the political situation but the social and religious conditions. According to the study it is most likely that religious awakening (the five religious manifestations) occurs before any political radicalisation (which also includes ‘perceived perversity and moral backwardness of the West. The U.S. is seen as forcing values of secularism, feminism, and gay rights’). This is precisely why the British government Prevent strategy overview should be greeted with applause: because it understands that rootlessness is part of the equation of terrorism. As the Prevent Strategy notes:

There is evidence to indicate that support for terrorism is associated with rejection of a cohesive, integrated, multi-faith society and of parliamentary democracy. [Thus we recommend working] to deal with radicalisation will depend on developing a sense of belonging to this country and support for our core values

6. This is of course not say that this will be the case in every single terrorist: but it does form a persuasive significant explanation. This is also not to deny that foreign policy is not a factor when working in culmination with others such as the lack of belonging. Indeed, my whole point is that distinguishing foreign policy from domestic and constitutional policy is wrong. Iraq did allow for an increased recruitment. But to be within the grounds of recruitment requires an aversion (or openness to an aversion) to a free society of consent.

Foreign policy seems comparable to the civil political situation of certain nations; Kruger (2007) finds that a lack of civil liberties is a contribution to Islamist terrorism. However this doesn't explain the  phenomenon of Western homegrown terrorism or, again, the lack of a response from the masses. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out before, the people of the Middle East have rejected the ideology of Al Qaeda. But it does provide one of many factors for the first generation – but a factor which, like Iraq, is not sufficient without alienation, cultural marginality and aversion to the West or their right actions in the Middle East.

On the subject of baseless ‘causes,’ poverty can also be thrown away; poverty has little to do with partaking in terrorism or even supporting terrorism. In fact, the relationship seems to point to the other way. Krueger and Maleckova (2003) give their own results and several previous studies that support this proposition.

It’s not about “hating us for our freedom” or “hating is for our foreign policy.” Its about hating us, in all that we are, which embodies a resistance to the forces which would plunge societies into a Medieval abyss. There’s no use blaming the victims, ‘whether in New York or Nairobi, Bali or Belfast, Mumbai or Manila, or Lahore or London.’ 

Sticks and Stones

There is no denying that there is high hostility toward Muslims in the West. However, this hostility is being misappropriated to make political points. This is the stuff that urban myths are made of. For example, in a recent article in Foreign Policy Watch:

The Western press is largely avoiding the term “terrorist”... The term “terrorist attack” is also absent from the headlines of our country’s major media outlets... In the American press and in mainstream political discourse, “terrorism” simply means “violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target.”

This is just absolute nonsense. I’m not talking about tabloids here (neither is FPW). I’m talking about mainstream media, the kind of reliable websites that will be used in history books. And just because I’m British and I’ve heard people over here making similar arguments, I’ll include the British press.

Firstly, to get the basics out of the way, FPW cites three examples: the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The Washington Post article they link to refers to “Two coordinated terror attacks in Norway.” And the Washington Post has continued to describe these actions as “terrorist attacks” and “terror attacks.” The Wall Street Journal has also referred to “terror attacks” and refers to the supposed two other cells as the “two other terrorist cells.”

As for the New York Times, they also faced a similar accusation from the Daily Kos where JackinSTL quotes a paragraph from an NYT article which apparently shows “once we eliminated the Arabic terrorists and found our right-wing Christian perp, he's suddenly not a ‘terrorist.’” Except it doesn’t, the paragraph which the Daily Kos quotes says:

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s signature brutality and multiple attacks.

But if you go to the New York Times article itself, it says:

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday’s assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda’s brutality and multiple attacks.

Its possible that the New York Times amended their article after it was written but in the context of where that paragraph was, it should have been obvious they were talking about Islamist terrorism. Rather than showing how insensitive the New York Times is to the word terrorism, it shows the opposite. (Oh, in case you had spotted the pattern, the NYT also refers to the Oslo attacks as acts of domestic ‘terrorism’).

And the same goes for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, The Sunday Times, the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, the Independent and the BBC. So as far as mainstream media outlets, even just the ones that FPW cited, they are not wary of using the term terrorist or terror to refer to these attacks. So what media outlets are FPW reading?!

And just a note and counter-example on using the word ‘terrorist’ in the British media: it is used in a limited way when talking about Palestinian terrorists. The official policy of the BBC on its 'Israel and the Palestinians' page states that:

The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution.

Which is why if you read an article on the BBC about Hamas doing something – even if its a suicide bombing against innocent civilians, even if its someone firing a rocket at a civilian town – the article will refer to them as “militants.” And the BBC is not alone in this: Reuters does the same thing (refusing even to call the 7/7 attacks ‘terrorist attacks’). Whether one agrees with this policy is another matter but what is clear is that terrorism is not just used for certain types of people and it is in fact not used when it is actually Islamists or brown people or whatever. Making simplistic statements doesn’t achieve anything. 

Baloney

There is a lot of nonsense about the War on Terror and there are a select group of people who seek to undermine Western actions at every corner. One of the many, many tidbits of nonsense that goes around these circles is the claim that the Taliban offered Bin Laden to the U.S and the U.S rejected it. Thus, the U.S never really cared about terrorism, they just wanted to go to war with Afghanistan. Noam Chomsky is part of this school of thought, as is Gareth Porter recently writing 

The Bush refusal to negotiate with the Taliban was in effect a free pass for bin Laden and his lieutenants, because the Bush administration had no plan of its own for apprehending bin Laden in Afghanistan.

They usually cite these reports: 

After a week of debilitating strikes at targets across Afghanistan, the Taliban repeated an offer to hand over Osama bin Laden, only to be rejected by President Bush... The offer yesterday from Haji Abdul Kabir, the Taliban's deputy prime minister, to surrender Mr bin Laden if America would halt its bombing and provide evidence against the Saudi-born dissident (The Independent, 15/10/2001)

Credibility

This position is open to two sets of criticisms, both of which undermine the "offers" given by the Taliban. Firstly, the credibility of such offers is minimal for several reasons. The Taliban claimed that Bin Laden went "missing" before they then went on to offer him when faced with air strikes. The Taliban continued to speak with two voices, the highest echelons (Mullah Omar) rebuffing any indication saying in October "there was no move to hand anyone over" while the less senior officials like Muttawakil and Kabir needed "evidence" and would pass him over to a "third country" which would never "come under pressure from the United States." Even this offer is unreasonable given the British government published a dossier on Bin Laden's involvement in 9/11. 

And even this is being far too generous to the Taliban: they have a history of making "offers" which amount to nothing. The National Security Archives obtained a file which was written pre-9/11 which documents talks with the Taliban on Bin Laden:

In our talks we have stressed that UBL has murders Americans and continues to plan attack against Americans and others and that we cannot ignore this threat... These talks have been fruitless. The Taliban said that they want a solution but that cannot comply with UNSCRs [United Nations Security Council Resolutions that demand his expulsion from Afghanistan]. In October 1999 the Taliban suggested several “solutions” including a UBL trial by a panel of Islamic scholars... Taliban consistently maintained that UBL’s activities are restricted despite all evidence to the contrary. Often our discussions have been followed by Taliban declaration that no evidence exists against UBL

This all sounds very familiar but these talks did not concern 9/11 but the other attacks Bin Laden carried out against Americans pre-9/11. At this stage it should be sufficient to say that the Taliban have a track record of dilly-dallying but there's more. Evidence was consistently rejected by the Taliban: 

On May 27, in Islamabad, Undersecretary Pickering gave Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Jalil a point-by-point outline of the information tying UBL to the 1998 embassy bombings... The Taliban subsequently rejected this evidence.

This is also the conclusion of the British government:

[In June 2001] Despite the evidence provided by the US of the responsibility of Usama Bin Laden and Al Qaida for the 1998 East Africa bombings, despite the accurately perceived threats of further atrocities, and despite the demands of the United Nations, the Taleban's regime responded by saying no evidence existed against Usama Bin Laden, and that neither he nor his network would be expelled.

Sometimes they just refused to respond to the USG (e.g. Sept. 29, 2000, October, 2000). The result is that the U.S approached the Taliban to expel Bin Laden 30 times before 9/11 to no avail. This in spite of repeated "negotiations," and demands not just from the USG but from the United Nations Security Council. Even the Bush administration tried three times in 2000 to no avail. In sum, we had multiple voices speaking out on something that the Taliban regime was clearly not serious about and had avoided. It is no surprise that the USG did not take seriously calls for evidence or negotiations: they completely lacked credibility. 

Insufficiency 

Secondly, even accepting entirely that Bin Laden would have been handed over and bought to justice; this is just simply not enough. The Bush administration had several legitimate demands and only one of them was dubiously addressed by the Taliban regime.

Bush's demands include turning over not only bin Laden, but all members of his al Qaeda network. The United States has also urged Afghanistan to close all terrorist training camps, give the U.S. access to those camps and release eight Western aid workers accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. (CNN, 07/10/2001, BBC, 14/10/2001)

This was made explicitly clear by Colin Powell in his interview with NBC's Meet the Press, 12 days after 9/11:

And even if we were to get Osama bin Laden tomorrow, he showed up turned over to us, that would be good, but it would not be the end. It's his lieutenants we have to get, it's the whole network that has to be ripped up. We can't take out the head and have the tail and other parts of it laying around waiting. (Washington Post, 23/09/2001)

Whats funny about this point is that often the same people who say that Bin Laden is 'just a figurehead' or is a 'myth' that has been created by the West to fight wars are often the ones making the argument that the U.S rejected Bin Laden being handed over - and they fail to see the irony.