Then there was the fake sheik who represented the “moderate” elements and the duplicity of the preceding administration, which was talking to dead people while fighting fictitious enemies. Nevertheless, the novel notion of a dialogue to achieve resolution cannot be underscored enough. The UN Envoy to Afghanistan is open to the idea but recommends talking to all the Taliban as it is his opinion that a fragmented approach will fail. This validates Rory Stewarts articulate presentation of the reasons why the Iraq approach is doomed to fail in Afghanistan: “The Taleban… do not have mass movements behind them. When we talk about driving the Taleban to the table, we forget that these groups are more insubstantial and fragmented than we acknowledge. The Kabul Government lacks political depth or legitimacy; the Taleban is elusive…”

Afghan opposition leaders, analysts and writers have also expressed their skepticism, maintaining that as long as Karzai’s government appears weak and ineffective, such approaches would lead nowhere

“I don’t know of a single peace process that has been successfully negotiated from a position of weakness or stalemate.”-Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister

“Obama’s comment resemble a dream more than reality,” said Waheed Mozhdah, an analyst who has written a book on the Taliban.

“Where are the so-called moderate Taliban? Who are the moderate Taliban?” asked Mozhdah, who was an official in both the Taliban and the Karzai governments.

Gen. David Petraeus, inflated by his “success” in Iraq would nevertheless like to apply the same strategy in Afghanistan and “has been a strong supporter of the strategy of trying to divide the Afghan insurgency by offering money and jobs to those willing to accept the government in Kabul. He has said that his strategy of outreach to what he has described as “reconcilables” among the insurgents in Iraq might be applicable in Afghanistan as well.”

While the US administration muddles around the possible outcome of adding more arms to the turmoil, the Afghan government, alongwith Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is already holding talks with the Taliban. Ironically, Taliban officials blame the US government and NATO for impeding these talks and inhibiting resolution between the Taliban and Afghan government.

A former top Taliban official says Afghans blame NATO and the U.S., not Taliban insurgents, for the mounting civilian deaths. And, says, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the international forces should step aside to let the Kabul government and Afghan military negotiate a settlement to the war with the Taliban. Mullah Zaeef, who became the public face of the Taliban regime as it collapsed in late 2001, says the Afghan government wants to reach a peaceful solution to the ongoing fighting with the Taliban and other insurgents, but is not being allowed to do so as NATO and the U.S. are firmly in control of military operations. “They have no power, they have no independence to negotiate,” said the mullah, a former confidant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar. “The foreigners should let the people of Afghanistan decide. If they want to talk to the Taliban, the foreigners should not interfere.” Mullah Zaeef spent almost four years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay after being arrested in Pakistan in January 2002. He was released at the request of the Afghan government, which is trying to work with “good Taliban” as part of a reconciliation program.

In all this hoopla, the real victims of the war continue to suffer and joke about their helplessness in the face of the events over which they have little or no control.

“Knock, knock.”

“Who is there?”

“It’s U.S. Special Forces.”

“What do you want?”

“We are looking for Mr. Moderate Taliban to talk to our leader, Mullah Obama.”

“There is no one here but us, the real Taliban; we are bearded, armed, and we don’t allow our girls to go to school or go outside.”

“It’s ok, he still wants to talk to you if you only oppress your own women and don’t attack us.”

So whats the solution? Is there a way out of this cesspool? Shazia Rafi offers a way to locate the “moderate” Taliban. Here criteria? Treatment of women. Based on the premise that the quality of a country is determined by the way it treats its women, she has offered a list of recommendations by which the Obama government can successfully locate moderates to deal with.

• Any leader whose own daughters are being educated without restriction on grade level or subjects: a moderate;
• Any leader whose mother, sisters, wife are educated without restriction on grade level or subjects: a moderate;
• Any leader who is willing to take the women and girls of his family to a male physician if he is the doctor on duty at the hospital/clinic: a moderate;
• Any leader whose female family members have paid employment or are self-employed: a moderate;
• Any leader who has killed or advocated killing of individuals or groups that disagree with his viewpoint: not eligible for moderate status.

And if you think thats not important, take a gander at what RAWA has to say here and here, or the following video

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[cartoon credits: Simon Farr, Guardian]

Or the Middle East:

source

The refugee camp Gaza, home to the grandchildren of the 1948 dispossession of native Palestinians initiated by the “architect of the nakba“, David ben Gurion, has no background to it in the media. Nor is there any reporting of the fact that of the 80% of refugees in Gaza, several are ironically from Ashkelon, the town previously known as Askalaan and have been deprived of the right of return for 60 years because they are not Jews.

When reporting on the rocket attacks by Hamas [the "terrorists"] there is no mention that they are a democratically elected group, which includes over 500 PhDs, many of whom were educated in the west. Nor is it relevant that 45 members of the Hamas parliament were kidnapped and are imprisoned by Israel.

Far more ominous is the suppression of information that directly affects the present conflict:

1. The ceasefire of the last 6 months was based on Israeli promises of lifting the crippling economic seige imposed since 2006, when Hamas won the elections.

Earlier, government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel planned to ease its months-long siege of the Gaza Strip so long as the truce deal was implemented as planned.

“If the fighting indeed ceases Thursday as planned, Israel will ease its blockade of Gaza next week,” Regev said. At the same time, talks to release Shalit will intensify, Regev said.

The blockade was never lifted, ie Israeli promises were null and void from day one. Hamas promised to stop its suicide bombing. There has been no suicide bombing.

2. The last ceasefire was announced by Hamas, Israel stopped short of claiming it a ceasefire. The IDF broke the ceasefire two months ago by targeting the tunnels that were being used by the Gazans to smuggle in food and medicines as well as fuel. The Israeli press admitted they invaded Gaza and killed several Palestinians.

In addition to running out of food for 750,000 Palestinians, about half of Gaza’s population, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said it would be forced after Thursday to suspend cash assistance to 98,000 poor Gazans because of a shortage of currency in the territory.

Barak acknowledged in the radio interview that the violence was touched off by the Israeli raid, which the army said destroyed a tunnel at the frontier that Gaza militants dug and could have been used to try to seize Israeli soldiers.

More than a dozen Palestinian fighters have been killed in in the past two weeks. Several Israelis have been slightly wounded by dozens of rockets.

3. Hamas asked for a truce on better terms i.e. no more attacks on Palestinians, lifting the blockade and no more assassinations. They refused to continue the ceasefire as is, because with the blockade, it was pointless. What were Gazans to do? Starve? Israel refused. They wanted a truce on better terms for themselves. Considering they already impose a complete blockade on Palestine, what are these better terms???

4. On the day that the current conflict started, last Saturday, no Israeli had died of rocket attacks in the intervening weeks [several Palestinians had died due to accidents].

But in some ways the elections have made it impossible for officials like Mr. Barak not to react, because the public has grown anxious and angry over the rocket fire, which while causing no recent deaths and few injuries is deeply disturbing for those living near Gaza

Four Israelis have died since [including one Israeli Arab]. 435 Palestinians have died, 2000 are injured [as I write, the Palestinians are still under attack] and the humanitarian crisis still goes on, the bombing continues and refugees are still waiting for justice.

As I watch the unfolding of the pseudo-reality that passes for news, I feel a strange epiphany. Gaza is the last bastion, not only for the Palestinian state, but also for the two state solution. In a strangely self destructive manner, Israel is destroying all future possibility of a two state solution. It will have no choice, if it defeats Hamas, but to inherit the Palestinians. In a one state solution.

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And yet, this should have been the last mosque to stand as a symbol of our inner khalish. According to the District Gazetteer Faizabad 1905: “up to this time (1855), both the Hindus and the Muslims used to worship in the same building. But since the Mutiny (1857), an outer enclosure has been put up in front of the Masjid and the Hindus forbidden access to the inner yard, make the offerings on a platform, which they have raised in the outer one�.

Claims of a Ram temple under the mosque had persisted through history, many people believing that Babur had built the mosque after demolishing the temple. No specific mention was made of this in the Babur Nama though, and some historians believe Babur merely repaired the edifice, not built it. Regardless, on that fateful day, 75,000 – 200,000 saffron clad militants, mostly from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, climbed over the edifice to bring it down, to rescue the Janmabhoomi of the Gods.

My memories of the day are scattered. At the time, it seemed like some far away, alien happening on another planet. Did things like this happen in India? We heard about it and saw it on television, but it was still all very unbelievable. Who were all these people and what did they want? An old mosque? We had seen the rath yatra passing befire our house some days back, an exercise in sensationalism that had all looked very filmi to me.

It was a stark piece of reality to many others. In Ayodhya, Muslims were afraid and changed heir nameplates to avoid recognition. The air resonated with the sentiments one would associate with pages of ancient history.

“Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection.â€? British Prime Minister Palmerston’s Letter No. 9 dated 9 October 1857, to Lord Canning, Viceroy of India, Canning Papers.”

People locked themselves in their home and uneasily peered outside. The kar sevaks were going through the streets of Ayodhya, mocking the fabric of Indian communal harmony, tearing it as they went. There was pain and disbelief on the faces I saw, shock at the demolition and the feeling of being abandoned and being betrayed by their countrymen. Houses were razed, people killed and maimed each other, Bombay was under curfew (!!Bombay!!). There were bomb blasts in the city, something that was not a common everyday occurrence at the time. I heard of a bearded man who had been burned alive, only later did they find out that he was Parsi, not Muslim.

Very very surreal to me. All this over a building?

My good friend at the time called and apologised to me for it. Why? Because she was Hindu. I was flabbergasted. What did I have to do with a decrepit mosque I had never seen? Why did she need to apologise for unknown strangers doing things un-Indian? I remember she gave me three hand embroidered handkerchiefs and a card about national Unity.

I was bemused and realised in her own way, she was showing her solidarity to our friendship and was upset over my perceived alienation by the incident. Cemented with chai breaks and crying over each others shoulders through five years of college, did we really need a card to tell us we’re okay? I hugged her and said, “It was just an old building I had never seen”. It has nothing to do with me. Truly, it was how I felt.

The Babri Masjid demolition was a pivotal moment in our history. It established firmly that fundamentalism had come home to stay, that religion, from that moment on, would be a defining factor in Indian politics and society, that rather than Indian, we were Hindus and Muslims. It ushered in the era of Hindutva and Islamic fundamentalism in India. The BJP and Shiv Sena became household names in all Bombay as well as the rest of the country. In Bombay, we lost our complacency that communalism was not for us. We became Mumbai and blended in, lost our spark, a recognition that whatever had happened to us those two months changed us forever. No longer could we boast of our cosmopolitan and secular nature. It wasn’t just us either, there was arson, looting, rape and destruction of temples in nearby Bangladesh.

Today, the site of the demolition is under the protection of the Supreme Court. Our interminably slow jusice system ponders and ponders over what should be done. The Liberhan Commission set up in 1992 to investigate the circumstances of the demolition has become the longest running commission in the history of the country. Bureaucracy and Politics plod on.

I hear many opinions on what should be done. The government should rebuild the mosque, say guilt stricken Hindus, with a temple nearby. A monument to Unity is needed here, say others. Muslims are curiously reluctant to offer heir opinions, the ones who care also feel they have lost the right to have a say, they have been evicted from their home. The ones who don’t care can’t see what the fuss is about. Build a school and educate the people, they say, offhandedly.

Speaking to many people on this issue this week, I was struck by something unusual. The lack of blame. Did Muslims blame the Hindus for the demolition. No, said the ones I spoke to, it was a momentary fanaticism. Even Hindus who recalled their support of the issue at the time admitted to a feeling of dismay, shame and disbelief that they could have ever been involved in this. “Just goes to show how easily people are misled,” they say, shaking their heads, as if to shake of the memories of their naivete.

To me, its all still surreal. Half a lifetime ago, on a different planet. Not my India.

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One of the boys named the bear after himself, Mohammed, and the people of Sudan roared in anger, accusing the teacher of committing blasphemy, by allowing him to name a teddy bear “the praised one”, which is what Mohammed means. And promptly threw her in prison.

The sentence on paper was 40 lashes or six months in prison, but has been commuted to 15 days in prison, praise the Lord!

As if that were not enough, thousands of people came forward to demonstrate, shouting:

“No tolerance: Execution”

“Kill her, kill her by firing squad.”

Unbelievable as it sounds, this is not science fiction, but the unfortunate travails of a real woman, who is sitting in prison at this very moment, as she ponders her wisdom in giving up her post in a nice little school in Liverpool, UK to come to a country embroiled in the aftermath of famine and civil war and teach young children.

Indeed, no good deed goes unpunished.

One would think the Sudanese have bigger problems to worry about. A recently ended fifteen year civil war that has destroyed the fabric of the society with ethnic cleansing and genocide, a famine that left 2 million homeless and had 12-100 people dying everyday, poverty, illiteracy, so whats in a teddy bear?

One needs to look closely at the situation in Sudan to get the real picture. After the period of colonialism, Sudan has seen alternate military and democratic governments, toppled through coups and uprisings. Religion has become a powerful tool in politics- it was the fuel that sustained the civil war between the Muslim elite in the North and the largely Christian rebels in the south.

The current military regime, led by Omar Bashir, came to power in a military coup in 1989 and has the backing of the fundamentalist group led by Hassan al-Turabi. It is Turabis group that is distributing leaflets in Sudan calling for Gibbons execution.

Sudan has since discovered oil and the consequent wealth has led to an elite section in the society. This elite class interested in making money, not playing politics and wants malls and shopping centers and western cinemas.

Bashir, who has also fallen out with Turabi, is involved in an intricate political by-play between the wealthy elite and the Islamists to maintain his position, where he uses Arab supremacism (rather than Islamic fundamentalism) to create an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion of foreigners. Perceived insults to the faith or the Prophet are exploited in the ever simmering cauldron of Sudanese politics, while religious fervor is brandished as political or tribal allegiance.

Add to that the recent entry of UN troops to Darfur and a people who are uncomfortable with foreign troops on their soil, and its easy enough to incite hatred against a white foreign teacher with the “audacity” to insult their religion. Sadly all they doing is becoming a laughing stock as the incredulous world looks on.

Sadly, this is yet another nail in the coffin for the image of Islam worldwide.

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I remember the first time we saw it, we rushed into Gaiety Galaxy as the credits were running, late as usual, mom and kids, great fans of the pikchars we watched as often as we could. If we rushed right after school , we could get the 12:30 pm show (saade baara baje wala show).

I remember now all the things I did not think then.

I did not think for example, that there was anything weird about three brothers who professed three different religions. I did not think it odd that the Muslim and Christian brothers had absolutely no resemblance to any Muslim or Christian I knew, but were outright caricatures.

It was perfectly normal in Hindi movies then (as it is to some extent even now) to show Muslims and Christians in a very unnatural light. Muslims were always very polite, ate paan and wore soorma. The women preferred heavy, exotic jewelry like large chandan haar necklaces, bindiyas and jhumkas. They wore long salwar kameez garments with lots of rhinestones and spangles. Their homes had glass chandeliers and bead curtains with pictures of Mecca on the wall (or an image with a calligraphy of Allah) and were always very devout, praying emotionally with tears running down their cheeks. They spoke Urdu affectedly, using unfamiliar phrases and quoted Urdu shairi, while bowing repeatedly in salaams.

They were alien beings to me – I prayed in pajamas, if at all, and spent most of the time shifting my feet despondently, as I tried hard not to think of the “I love Lucy” show I was missing. I wished I was devout and worthy. Even while reading the Quran, I was more enthralled with the paandaan and the Hyderabadi accent of my aapa (literally big sister, but a term of respect we used for the lady who taught us to read) than with the unpronounceable squiggles I was reading. We had no curtains or pictures of Mecca on the wall, my father read legal thrillers and wore cotton shorts and vests at home, mom read the newspaper and Jasoosi Duniya, wore cotton saris. We read Archies Comics and lived in simple dresses.

In the movie, the Muslim brother chewed paan and wore a neck kerchief and a ‘miyabhai’ cap, Allah was frequently peppered in his conversations. And the burkha was a must for his jaaneman, who was a Muslima. Did anyone think it odd that he should be with a Muslima? The Christian brother wore top hats and carried a cane and danced some Western like dances. He was bethrothed to a Christian girl who wore a dress. The Hindu brother was the ‘normal’ Indian, the only one I could identify with, something which did not even occur to me at the time.

At the interval, we rushed out and had samosas, sometimes I think we went to Gaiety Galaxy especially because of their piping hot samosas (Rs 1 for two at the time and larger and tastier than what we get now). Back in the dark, we stumbled into our seats, pushing past patrons who would never dream of getting up to make it easier. I was enthralled with the drama and dishoom dishoom and watched closely to see if my mother started crying when the brothers were united (my mother always cried in Hindi movies, a practise I faithfully adhere to, in her memory). My brother watched me to see when I would cry. The songs were wonderful and we sang them as we went home. My name is Anthony Gonsalves…Eeyaaahooo! Main duniya mein akela hoon!

Today, looking back, I cannot remember at what point I came to the realisation that I was represented by the Muslim brother. Was this how other Indians saw Muslims? It was not how I saw myself at all.

As I watch the movie today, I reflect on what India and being Indian means to me. I look at my chai and bhajias, at Amitabh , at my memories of the pikchar shows, at school days spent playing langdi and phugdi and kho kho, with my friends Hema and Mary.

Did it ever really matter who prayed to what God? When did it ever become a matter of such importance?

Would an Amar Akbar Anthony be possible today?

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Etymology

The term “terrorism” comes from Latin terrere, “to frighten” via the French word terrorisme, which is often associated with the Regime de la Terreur, the Reign of Terror of the revolutionary government in France from 1793 to 1794.

Maximilien Robespierre, a leader of the revolution, proclaimed in 1794, “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs…If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror — virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent.”

The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of “The Terror” were referred to as “Terrorists.”

The English word “terrorism” was first recorded in English dictionaries in 1798 as meaning “systematic use of terror as a policy.”

History

The earliest known organization that corresponds to modern terrorism was the Zealots of Judea, also known as the Sicarii, or the dagger men. They were an underground organization of Jewish revolutionaries in 66CE in Judea, whose religious zeal led them to fight to death the Roman occupation. They also killed or persecuted Jews who collaborated with the Romans.

Their motive was an uncompromising belief that they could not remain faithful to the dictates of Judaism while living as Roman subjects. Eventually, the Zealot revolt became open, and they were finally besieged and committed mass suicide at the fortification of Masada. (Global Terrorism;James M Lutz, Brenda J Lutz)

Common Myths

The general image of the suicide terrorist is that of a religious fanatic, uneducated, poor and irrational. However, research on the social and psychological background of terrorists show they tend to be more prosperous and better educated than most in their societies, and no more religious or irrational than the average person.

1. Poverty

A study of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide terrorists from the late 1980s to 2003 found only 13 per cent were from a poor background, compared with 32 per cent of the Palestinian population in general, according to a New Scientist report.

2. Education

Modern suicide terrorism finds its origin in the Marxist LTTE of Sri Lanka. “The assasination of Sri Lanka’s foreign minister …has once again raised the question of how the conflict on this ill-fated isle will end.

What bedevils conflict analysts most about Sri Lanka is that it defies the most common causal factor raised by terrorism experts — a lack of education. Among all South Asian countries, Sri Lanka has the highest literacy rate of an astounding 92 percent.

Yet this is the country where the cult of suicide bombings finds its origin with more than 200 suicide attacks since 1970 that have claimed thousands of lives. The victims include several politicians including the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was killed by a female suicide bomber in 1991.

Clearly the educational development in this country has not had a direct correlation with conflict reduction.�

In December 2001, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, conducted a public-opinion poll of 1,357 Palestinians age 18 or older in the West Bank and Gaza on topics including the September 11 attacks in the United States, support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and attacks against Israel.

The poll reveals several things. First, support for attacks against Israeli targets by the Palestinian population is widespread (from 74 percent to 90 percent, depending on the subgroup), though it is important to emphasize that there is a distinction between support for attacks expressed in a poll at a particular moment and participation or active collusion in such attacks.

Second, a majority, more than 60 percent of the population surveyed, believes that attacks against Israeli civilians have helped to achieve Palestinian rights in a way that negotiations could not have.

These results offer no evidence that educated people are less supportive of attacks against Israeli targets. In fact, the support for attacks against Israeli targets is higher among those with more than a secondary-school education than among those with only an elementary-school education, and the support is considerably lower among those who are illiterate.

The study showed also that support for attacks against Israeli targets is particularly strong among students, merchants, and professionals. Notably, the unemployed are somewhat less likely to support such attacks. If poverty were indeed the wellspring of support for terrorism or politically motivated violence, one would have expected the unemployed to be more supportive of attacks than were merchants and professionals, but the evidence points the other way.

Similarly, Claude Berrebi, a graduate student in economics at Princeton, has studied the characteristics of recent suicide bombers in Israel. From information on the Web sites of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, he was able to paint a statistical picture of suicide bombers. He compared that to survey-based data on the broader Palestinian population of roughly comparable age.

His results indicate that suicide bombers are less than half as likely to come from impoverished families than is the population as a whole. In addition, more than half of the suicide bombers had attended school after high school, while less than 15 percent of the population in the same age group had any post-high-school education. Its not a mental disease.

“In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists.

Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.� (Pape, Robert A. The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. American Political Science Review 97:343-362 August 2003)

3. Religious Fanaticism

Contemporary suicide terrorists from the Middle East are publicly deemed crazed cowards bent on senseless destruction who thrive in poverty and ignorance. Recent research indicates they have no appreciable psychopathology and are as educated and economically well-off as surrounding populations.

A first line of defense is to get the communities from which suicide attackers stem to stop the attacks by learning how to minimize the receptivity of mostly ordinary people to recruiting organizations (Scott Atran, Science, 7 March 2003:Vol. 299. no. 5612, pp. 1534 – 1539)

Ariel Merare, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, said he had changed his view that most suicide bombers were mentally ill after studying the background of every suicide bomber in the Middle East since 1983.”In the majority you find none of the risk factors normally associated with suicide, such as mood disorders or schizophrenia, substance abuse or a history of attempted suicide,” he said.

“With a queue of willing participants, how do terrorist or militant groups choose their suicide bombers? A planner for Islamic Jihad explained to Nasra Hassan, a relief worker for United Nations (New Yorker, November 19, 2001), that his group scrutinizes the motives of a potential bomber to be sure that the individual is committed to carrying out the task. Now, a high level of educational attainment is probably a signal of one’s commitment to a cause, as well as of one’s ability to prepare for an assignment and carry it out. For this reason, the stereotype of suicide bombers being drawn from the ranks of those who are so impoverished that they have nothing to live for may be wildly incorrect.

This interpretation is also consistent with another of Hassan’s observations about suicide bombers: “None of them were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying jobs. More than half of them were refugees from what is now Israel. Two were the sons of millionaires.â€?

Common explanations are not based on fact:
A 64-year-old Palestinian woman blew herself up as a suicide bomber in Gaza [ 23 November 2006] in an attack on Israeli troops. Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the attack, named the woman as Fatma Omar An-Najar and said that she lived near the refugee camp. Her oldest daughter, Fatheya, said she decided to become a bomber because her grandson had been killed. “They [the Israelis] destroyed her house, they killed her grandson – my son,” she told the Associated Press. “Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg,” she said.

Suicidal attacks are broadly correlated with certain conditions – economic deprivation and human loss – along with policy outcomes (closures and other structurally damaging policies); eroding the individual motives to support and participate in violence would necessarily include improving the structural health of Palestinian society.

Does Al-Qaeda conform to the myths?

Marc Sageman’s findings from biographical material from more than 400 al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists (Sageman, Marc Terror Networks (Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

* The vast majority of terrorists in the sample came from solid middle class backgrounds, and its leadership came from the upper class.

* Only 13 percent of terrorists went to madrassahs, and this practice was specific to Southeast Asia, where two school masters, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Baasyir, recruited their best students to form the backbone of the Jamaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian al-Qaida affiliate. This means that 87 percent of terrorists in the sample had a secular education.

* The vast majority of al-Qaida terrorists in the sample came from families with very moderate religious beliefs or a completely secular outlook. Indeed, 84 percent were radicalized in the West, rather than in their countries of origin. Most had come to the West to study, and at the time they had no intention of ever becoming terrorists. Another 8 percent consisted of Christian converts to Islam, who could not have been brainwashed into violence by their culture.

* About two-thirds of the sample had attended college, a sharp contrast with the less than 10 percent of their original communities who did so. Despite their education, they did not know much about religion; however, many had studied engineering, which made them doubly dangerous. Their relative lack of religious education made them especially vulnerable to an extreme version of Islam, and they had the skills to build bombs.

* Some argue that lack of sexual opportunity for young Muslim men transforms their sexual frustration into suicide terrorism to reap the rewards of heaven, especially access to the 72 virgins. In fact, three-fourths of al-Qaida terrorists are married, and two-thirds of them have children (and many children at that). This apparent paradox is explained by the fact that they want many children to pursue the jihad, while they sacrifice themselves for their cause and comrades.

* About 60 percent of al-Qaida terrorists in the sample have professional or semi-professional occupations.

* There was a near total lack of mental disorders in the sample.

* Recruitment into al-Qaida was through friendship and kinship rather than dedicated recruiters.

Why is it necessary to understand terrorism?

Suicide terrorism is rising around the world, but the most common explanations do not help us understand why. Religious fanaticism does not explain why the world leader in suicide terrorism is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a group that adheres to a Marxist/Leninist ideology, while existing psychological explanations have been contradicted by the widening range of socio-economic backgrounds of suicide terrorists.

In contrast to the existing explanations, Robert Pape’s study, which has collected biographical information of 188 suicide terrorist attacks worldwide from 1980 to 2001, shows that suicide terrorism follows a strategic logic, one specifically designed to coerce modern liberal democracies to make significant territorial concessions. Moreover, over the past two decades, suicide terrorism has been rising largely because terrorists have learned that it pays. Suicide terrorists sought to compel American and French military forces to abandon Lebanon in 1983, Israeli forces to leave Lebanon in 1985, Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and 1995, the Sri Lankan government to create an independent Tamil state from 1990 on, and the Turkish government to grant autonomy to the Kurds in the late 1990s.

In all but the case of Turkey, the terrorist political cause made more gains after the resort to suicide operations than it had before. Thus, Western democracies should pursue policies that teach terrorists that the lesson of the 1980s and 1990s no longer holds, policies which in practice may have more to do with improving homeland security than with offensive military action.

Rohan Gunaratna, head of terrorism research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the findings had overturned popular ideas about terrorists. “They are like you and me,” he said. The experts said resistance groups tended to adopt suicide tactics when they were losing political ground to rival groups, and used psychological techniques to ensure recruits went through with the act. Suicide attacks are a kind of tactic, planned and organized by extremely committed military or paramilitary groups.

According to Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on suicide terrorism and expert on suicide bombers, ninety-five percent of such attacks in recent times have the same specific strategic goal: to cause an occupying state to withdraw forces from a disputed territory. It is the only way small, disaffected groups can fight a powerful enemy.

The Islamic Position on Terrorism:

According to Islamic jurist and scholar Khaled Abou Al-Fadl, The classical jurists, nearly without exception, argued that those who attack by stealth, while targeting noncombatants in order to terrorize the resident and wayfarer, are corrupters of the earth. “Resident and wayfarer” was a legal expression that meant that whether the attackers terrorize people in their urban centers or terrorize travelers, the result was the same: all such attacks constitute a corruption of the earth. The legal term given to people who act this way was muharibun (those who wage war against society), and the crime is called the crime of hiraba (waging war against society). The crime of hiraba was so serious and repugnant that, according to Islamic law, those guilty of this crime were considered enemies of humankind and were not to be given quarter or sanctuary anywhere. … Those who are familiar with the classical tradition will find the parallels between what were described as crimes of hiraba and what is often called terrorism today nothing short of remarkable. The classical jurists considered crimes such as assassinations, setting fires, or poisoning water wells – that could indiscriminately kill the innocent – as offenses of hiraba. Furthermore, hijacking methods of transportation or crucifying people in order to spread fear and terror are also crimes of hiraba. Importantly, Islamic law strictly prohibited the taking of hostages, the mutilation of corpses, and torture.

References and Further Reading:

All it Takes to Make a Suicide Attacker. New Scientist 182:3 May 15, 2004.

Bennett, James. Gingerly, Arabs Question Suicide Bombings. New York Times, p.A1, Op, July 3, 2002.

Bennett, James. HAMAS Urges Iraqis to Make Suicide Attacks on the Invaders. New York Times, p.B13, Op, March 22, 2003.

Bennett, James. Rash of New Suicide Bombers Exhibit No Patterns or Ties. New York Times, p.A1, Op, June 21, 2002.

Bond, Michael. The Making of a Suicide Bomber. New Scientist 182:34-37 May 15, 2004.

Dying to Kill Us. New York Times, p.A17, Op, September 22, 2003.

Eshel, David. Israel Reviews Profile of Suicide Bombers. Jane’s Intelligence Review 13:20-21 November 2001.

Gunaratna, Rohan. Suicide Terrorism: A Global Threat. Jane’s Intelligence Review 12:52-55 April 2000.

Gunaratna, Rohan. Terror From the Sky. Jane’s Intelligence Review 13:6-9 October 2001.
Describes the evolution of suicide terrorism and the use of airborne attacks.

Hecht, Richard D. Deadly History, Deadly Actions, and Deadly Bodies: A Response to Ivan Strenski’s ‘Sacrifice, Gift and the Social Logic of Muslim “Human Bombers.”‘ Terrorism and Political Violence 15:35-47 Autumn 2003.

Hoffman, Bruce and McCormick, Gordon H. Terrorism, Signaling, and Suicide Attack. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 27:243-281 July-August 2004.

Israeli, Raphael. A Manual of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence 14:23-40 Winter 2002.

Kondaki, Christopher. Suicide Terrorism, an Age-Old Weapon, Adds Technology. Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy 29:8-9 2001.

Kushner, Harvey W. Suicide Bombers: Business as Usual. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 19:329-337 October-December 1996.

Luft, Gal. The Palestinian H-Bomb. Foreign Affairs 81:2-8 July-August 2002.
Article discusses the Palestinian’s growing acceptance of suicide bombings as a legitimate tool of war.

Moghadam, Assaf. Palestinian Suicide Terrorism in the Second Intifada: Motivations and Organizational Aspects. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 26:65-92 March-April 2003.

Pape, Robert A. The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. American Political Science Review 97:343-362 August 2003.

Perina, Kaja. Suicide Terrorism: Seeking Motives Beyond Mental Illness. Psychology Today 35:15 September-October 2002.

Pope, Hugh. HAMAS Official Won’t Rule out Suicide Bombings. Wall Street Journal, p.A10, Op, April 21, 2003.

Sprinzak, Ehud. Rational Fanatics Foreign Policy 120:66-73 September-October 2000.

Strenski, Ivan. Sacrifice, Gift and the Social Logic of Muslim “Human Bombers.” Terrorism and Political Violence 15:1-34 Autumn 2003.

Telhami, Shibley. Why Suicide Terrorism Takes Root. New York Times, pA23, Op, April 4, 2002.

Waldman, Amy. Masters of Suicide Bombing: Tamil Guerrillas of Sri Lanka. New York Times, p.A1, Op, January 14, 2003.

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Both sides of the Indian government and the nation’s scientists have reservations regarding the conditions attached to this proposal, chiefly the ability to carry out nuclear testing and limiting India’s right to process depleted uranium fuel, a key step in plutonium processing; which they perceive as an undermining of India’s national security concerns as well as its sovereignty.

India, US and the NPT:

Since 1974, when India conducted its first nuclear weapons test, it has been effectively isolated in the international nuclear community, with consequent barring of any civilian use of nuclear technology and materials. This followed India’s refusal to be a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (enacted in 1970 and extended indefinitely in 1995) and comprehensive test ban treaty, on the basis of their unequal and discriminatory nature.

The United States itself rejected ratification of the test ban treaty and renounced the obligations made to non-nuclear parties at the 1995 and 2000 conferences. Moreover, the US Senate has voted to keep alive the bunker buster program in the face of demands that it be dropped.

Broken Promises:

After a promise of long term nuclear support to India in 1963 and following the provision of India’s first two nuclear power reactors, the United States unilaterally changed its policy in the 1970s and stopped supplying fuel. Huge pools of spent nuclear waste accumulated in India, with Washington neither taking it back nor giving India the requisite permission to process it.

Conditional Treaty:

Apart from restrictions on processing depleted uranium or conducting nuclear tests, the Indo-US nuclear deal is further contingent on certain conditions expected to be met by India.

1. Cutting down emission of greenhouse gases, which imposes restrictions on industry and technology, as well as development of infrastructure.

2. US opposition to the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project; a necessity in a multi-pronged approach to energy considering India’s growing requirements. India would also have to cut off all energy and military agreements with Iran, a long standing and historical ally.

3. Joint operations with US military for non-proliferation and security, which essentially put India in the disturbing position of playing watch dog for the US at a time when the US sponsored War on Terror has destabilized world peace and security.

So, why should India consider the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal?

Political Gains:

Firstly, it would not only improve India’s standing as a regional superpower, but also in the next decade, provide it with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (albeit without a veto), with the opportunity to have its voice heard in world forums like the UN and WTO as well as the IMF.

Technological Growth:

The treaty would provide an instant spur to India’s technological growth, through import of nuclear technology; high tech manufacturing investments would increasingly find their way to India, with its low labor costs and strong base of science and engineering graduates.

Economic gains:

The US and Europe presently send the bulk of their capital to China for consumer goods. The import of technology (avoided by the US and Europe for China), would make India a competitive contender in the fields of high technology capital goods, such as auto parts, pharmaceuticals, computer hardware, commercial aircraft manufacture, ship building, steel plants, mining and drilling hardware and petrochemical facilities.

As apparent from the weighing of pros and cons above, India stands to gain a lot from this nuclear deal, although it would be wise not to give up too much of our sovereignty and to keep a firm eye on what is in our best strategic and domestic interests.

As Defence Minister AK Antony said, in reference to the Indo-US nuclear deal, “The challenge is to keep pace with these technological changes is more pronounced than ever before. The choice before us is clear – either let events shape us, or enhance our ability to shape events.�

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