Terrorism and Our Domestic Peril by John W. Kiser
Terrorism and Our Domestic Peril
By John W. Kiser (Oct. 28, 2002)
The final word on the sniper killings is not yet in. John Allen Muhammad reportedly left behind letters overflowing with expressions of rage. It has not yet been revealed publicly whether his anger was personal or political, or both, but the chaos he caused in the Washington, DC area could be a glimpse into America's future if our government's security policies are not extremely wise.
Whatever their motives, two men effectively acted as terrorists. Mr. Muhammad is an American convert to Islam and is a US military trained marksman. Yet, even if he is in no way connected with extremist Muslim causes, the assassinations should be a screaming warning for those responsible for fighting terrorism.
I spent four years studying the terrorism that ravaged Algeria in the 1990's, part of my research for a book, The Monks of Tibhirine. It was a story about French Trappist monks who lived amid great violence, yet were respected by Muslims and even the terrorists around them. It was also a story about rage and the bitterness of Algeria's youth that finally vented its anger after the Islamist FIS party was cheated out of an electoral victory in 1991 by a government whose security forces had killed over 500 young people during riots in 1989.
Like everyone else in the Washington area, I followed with great attention the so-called sniper killings. After about the third death, I predicted to friends that this had the smell of a disciplined, militarily trained killer. Perhaps it was an al Qaeda cell, I speculated, or simply a free lancer sympathetic with al Qaeda or at least sympathetic with Muslims who are being killed directly by America, or indirectly by the governments it supports in the Middle East.
The randomness of the killings reminded me of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria after it declared war on foreigners in 1993. As part of a total war against its own government, the GIA expanded its targets from police and military personnel to anti- Islamist Muslims, and finally all foreigners. Foreigners were given 30 days to leave the country or be responsible for their own death. Why? Total war meant discouraging foreign investment, technical assistance or any activities that helped support the existing government. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
Killed in the first week after the GIA ultimatum expired were an Italian coral merchant, a British employee of Pullman Kellogg at a gas station, the Russian wife of an Algerian near a shopping center, a seventy year old French pensioner walking out the door of his home one morning--all shot as targets of convenience.
In the Muhammad/Malvo case there was no ultimatum, no declaration of war, no credit taken. Declaring, "I am God" would normally be a great blasphemy for a Muslim. The statement sent me back to other theories-angry right-wingers or a cop gone haywire. The common denominator of all forms of terrorism is rage and bitterness, sometimes to the point of derangement. It may be personally or politically motivated: badly treated employees "going postal," angry, bullied amoral students who terrorize our schools, or Timothy McVeighs.
Let's not forget that with 8 million Muslims in America, their numbers increasing, the chances are growing that their relatives and friends "over there" may become victims of our "collateral damage." (Americans were revolted when Timothy McVeigh used it to refer to American children killed in his bombing.) Other Muslim-Americans may have friends and relatives who have been abused in Egyptian, Saudi or Israeli prisons whose governments we support.
The havoc just caused by one or two trained angry assassins is a small preview of what the future in America might be like if even a tenth of one percent of the eight million American Muslim population becomes embittered by the US government's abusive confinement of suspects held without any legal rights or by the killing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan or Iraq, or simply holds deeply felt sympathy with the Muslim wretched of the earth who are struggling against injustice in the countries we prop up thanks to Cold War legacies and domestic politics. Eight thousand, or even eighteen, angry, alienated American Muslims and unknown numbers of John Lindh fellow travelers willing to pull triggers or drive truck bombs will turn the United States into a nightmare of confusion and fear.
The likelihood of such nightmare scenarios being realized will much depend on how the US exercises its sole superpower status. Will our government officials try to run the world based on the use of its sheer power? This is an enterprise doomed to fail. If it wants to truly be "man's best hope," then it must put the word justice back in its vocabulary. To lead and be great "America must be good," as President Eisenhower said. That means providing moral leadership that goes beyond the primitive politics of Machiavelli and the precept of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"--until tomorrow. Perhaps the President could begin with a change of vocabulary.
George Bush is supposedly a Christian. He should believe all people are God's children, not just Americans. When the US government shows the same sensitivity to the loss of innocent lives in other countries as it does toward its own and outlaws the official use of the term "collateral damage" to the killing of non-American civilians, it will have made a start towards moral leadership. The press could contribute and begin talking about mothers and fathers, sons and daughters killed.
The greatest danger posed by this administration's obvious lust to invade Iraq has been stated by others already: It will make Osama bin Laden's (or his successors') job of recruiting more holy warriors so much easier. Destroying Iraq and killing more innocent people will further enrage the Muslim-Arab world against America. To understand their anger, simply think about America's anger, post 9/11. What America is reaping today is fueled by many things, but one is the anger created the last time it tried to get rid of Saddam by punishing innocent Iraqi civilians. Sanctions against Iraq had the morality of a disciplinarian telling a father who is a child abuser that his children will be starved if he doesn't leave the house.
The ability of Trappist monks to live peacefully amongst Muslims offers a useful moral that we can apply to our foreign security policy. They lived by the Benedictine Rule, which includes the all-important injunction: "Honor everyone...never do to another what you do not want done to yourself." Making Jesus Christ a reference point for our behavior towards other nations might be a revolutionary (some will say totally naïve) precept for foreign policy conduct, but are nations that different from people? Such an approach could bring untold respect among millions of Muslims (and non Muslims) around the world. A verse in the Koran that every practicing Muslim knows is: "Whoever kills one person unjustly, kills all of humanity, whoever saves one innocent life, saves all humanity." Popular support for the GIA fell away in Algeria when it started fighting in a manner that discredited Islam. The GIA's biggest sin was its policy of total warfare, especially the killing of unarmed civilians suspected of supporting its infidel Westernized government.
The same turning away could happen with al-Qaeda, whose tactics are despicable to the overwhelming majority of Muslims. But America must learn to restrain itself, and its own "democratic rage." After the US pummeling of Afghanistan, CIA Director George Tenet told Congress that America is no safer a year later, maybe less safe. And is Israel any safer by virtue of its policy of three Arab eyes for one Israeli?
America is a giant, but let it not become a Goliath stomping nations in preemptive strikes that slaughter innocents, creating its own "state terrorism." Such a course of action would put in grave question America's claim to moral leadership, but also on a more practical level enrage more people at home and abroad. Fighting political terrorism requires the use of fine surgical instruments that can distinguish subtle differences, great speed and deep knowledge of the nature of the tumor. The chemotherapy approach not only kills innocent cells; perversely, it may strengthen the cancerous ones. [Their fuel will be anger, and worse, in America, like Northern Ireland, it could quickly become sectarian.]
If religion, immigration status and ethnicity serve as a valid basis for identifying outside threats, then clumsy, abusive internal security measures based on the same can become the mechanism for igniting internal rage among home- grown Americans who either are Muslim, or simply "look Muslim."
In Northern Ireland, the Protestants can recognize Catholics by their name, neighborhood, and, they say, appearance. It is not hard to imagine that if the fear and chaos created by two low-tech shooters is repeated on a more pervasive scale than has just occurred, discrimination, vilification and even internment are not out of the question. It is a horrifying thought. We will need many wise and courageous leaders who will resist popular demands for vengeance at any cost.
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John W. Kiser is the author of The Monks of Tibhirine.