The Western Roots of Middle-Eastern

Terrorism

We would like to invite the public to ponder the wisdom of

a thinker who once said that in the past weapons were
manufactured to wage wars, but today wars are
manufactured to sell weapons.
by Amir Nour-Feb 18, 2017

( February 18, 2017, Boston, Sri Lanka

Guardian) Convinced that terrorism, in all its forms and
manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for
whatever purposes, is unacceptable and unjustifiable, member
States of the United Nations were finally able to adopt, on
September 8, 2006, a common approach within the framework of
the United Nations global counter-terrorism strategy . But, ten
years later, the international community has yet to agree on a
consensus definition of the common enemy, which continues to
grow and expand, thus inflicting devastation and untold misery,
mainly to the States and the peoples of the Arab and Muslim
world.

However, in a bitter irony, and in total defiance of established

historical truths, these very victims and their majority religion
-Islam- are accused by some of the crime of sponsoring
transnational terrorism, hence jeopardizing international peace
and security.

But who is really to be held liable for the birth and expansion of
the phenomenon of violence in modern times, against the
consequences of which a number of visionary thinkers like Malek
Bennabi and Eric E. Hobsbawm had yet forewarned the world a
century ago already?

The opinions exposed in this paper on this burning topic arent

expressed by Muslim officials or thinkers. They are those of
Westerners, at different levels of authority and moral and political
responsibility, representing the obverse and the reverse of the
terrorism medal, and pointing out the historical responsibility of
some Western governments They are representative of a
politically incorrect voice whose echo is barely audible in the
middle of the media tumult skillfully orchestrated by the new
self-righteous.

Terrorism, Islam and treason of the clerks

Recently, magistrate Vincent Sizaire, author of the book titled
LImposture scuritaire, explained[2] that the characterization
of terrorism is more about political calculation than legal
hermeneutics, since it is necessarily the result of a process of
balance of power and political assessment, at the end of which
the powers to be tend to apply it in a more or less discretionary
manner to a particular criminal rather than another. Sizaire
highlights how it is problematic, today, to use the same term to
refer to activities undertaken by fanatical and obscurantist
groups, and to actions of political opponents of authoritarian
regimes.

Therefore, there can obviously be no question for the need to put

forward a new definition of this concept, one less equivocal.
Indeed, it should be pointed out that, to date, no one definition of
terrorism has gained universal acceptance. Alex Schmid and
Albert Jongman identify 109 different definitions[3]. The United
Nations still cant find an agreed upon definition among its
member States since December 17, 1996, date of adoption by the
General Assembly of resolution 51/210, by which it was decided
to create a special Committee to develop a comprehensive
convention on international terrorism. Its so controversial a
debate that, according to Oliver Libaw, even in the United States
-where the Global War on Terror was launched in 2001- it turns
out that no one is all that sure just what terrorism is[4].

Thus, the future still looks bright for the famous and often-cited
claim that one mans terrorist is another mans freedom
fighter[5]. Never mind! For one school of thought in the West,
terrorism, barbarity and intolerance are consubstantial to Islam as
a religion. Consequently, in the face of the crazy Muslim zealots
who see progress as an evil, tolerance as a weakness and
pacifism as a sin, and call for murder and destruction,
resistance and relentless struggle are to be opposed within a
long Fourth World War[6], akin to those waged by the Free
World against fascism and nazism during the First and Second
World Wars, and against communism during the third world war,
presumably completed with the end of the cold war in 1989.

Nothing seems to shake the certainties of the proponents of this

dominant thought often described as neoconservative, mainly
conveyed by Western and Israeli think tanks, and relayed by their
powerful mainstream media. And it would be pointless to remind
them, for instance, that in the absence of a comprehensive
international convention on terrorism-a result of the lack of a
consensus definition that should be distinguished from the
legitimate struggle of peoples for self-determination and which
should include State terrorism- Arab and Muslim States have
developed their own legal instruments within their regional
groups; that in the 1990s, a country like Algeria fought alone
against terrorism -before a suspicious international silence- that
cost her more than 200,000 deaths and economic losses
estimated at more than $ 30 billion; that 95% of lives lost to
terrorist barbarity are to be found among Muslims[7]; that the
highest official authorities of Islam have condemned without
appeal both the ideology and actions of terrorist groups; and that
the overwhelming majority of Muslim populations reject terrorism
in all its forms and manifestations, as confirmed by statistics
provided by Western survey institutes and agencies themselves.

In his time, Julien Benda denounced the betrayal of the clerks.

More recently, Pascal Boniface pin the intellectual counterfeiters
who bear a heavy responsibility in the place occupied by lies in
the public debate. He targets in particular those who tend to
equate Islam and terrorism by referring to fascislamism and
contribute to nurture a neoconservative approach that thrives in
the West since the 9/11 attacks.
We have already addressed this issue of Islam as a mobilizing and
unifying scarecrow in the West[8]. We have reported a dangerous
semantic shift that we constantly observe since the fall of the
Berlin Wall: from counter-terrorism actions, we jumped to war
against Islamic terrorism, and then to the fight against Islamic
extremism . And we have, inevitably, raised the following
question: Are we soon going to abandon superfluous adjectives
and hypocritical euphemisms to openly claim the war against
Islam itself ?. Since then, time and events seem to have proved
us right

Responsibility of the West regarding transnational

terrorism

Some people believe that radical Islamism and jihadism are not
an exclusive creation of the West. To think otherwise, they
argue, would be to overestimate the Western influence in areas
where many other local and international factors have contributed
to their development over a long period of time. That is certainly
right, and so is the fact that certain misguided policies pursued by
Western powers, particularly by Anglo-Saxon countries, have
greatly contributed to the emergence and expansion of these
phenomena, especially since the iconic events of 9/11 and their
disastrous by-products: the Afghan and Iraqi military
expeditions.

Britains role

This view is shared by Mark Curtis, who documented in a book[9]

the collusion of the United Kingdom with Islamism since the last
century. Based on reliable documentation and government
archives, he dissects an aspect of British foreign policy, which has
remained curiously ignored or deliberately obscured by the
mainstream media. This collusion, he says, has a long history
which has contributed not only to the rise of radical Islam itself,
but also to that of international terrorism, which the new strategy
of national security of the UK Government has designated as the
biggest threat to the country, and that the highest ranking
officer of the British army has identified as the fight of our
generation, maybe our Thirty Years War.

Curtis says that the share of responsibility of London in the

emergence of the terrorist threat goes well beyond the impact its
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had on a few individuals. The
most important fact in this story is, according to him, that the
successive labour and conservative governments have, for
decades, connived with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist
organizations. They have, sometimes, trained and financed them
in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives, with a view
to desperately preserving what was left of British power and
influence internationally, mainly in areas considered as sensitive
but where it was no longer possible to impose their will and
interests unilaterally or by relying on other local allies.

The role of the United States of America

In his book[10] published in 2005, Robert Dreyfuss meticulously

documents the American role in this Devils Game. Drawing on
archival research and interviews with policymakers and officials of
the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department, he analyzes the
consequences of sixty years of misguided efforts on the part of
the United States in order to dominate the economically and
strategically vital Middle East region. Dreyfuss argues that
Americas historic alliance with the Islamic right is greatly to
blame for the emergence of Islamist terrorism. He concludes by
stating that far from promoting democracy and security, this
policy, which continues to this day, ensures a future of blunders
and blowback.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of the late U.S. President J.F.

Kennedy, also considered the long history of the violent
interventions of his country in the region. He explains in a long
article[11] in Politico magazine why we should look beyond
convenient explanations of religion and ideology and examine
instead the more complex rationales of history and oil and how
they often point the finger of blame back at our own shores. He
also describes how over the past seven decades, the Dulles
brothers, the Cheney gang, the neocons and their ilk have
hijacked that fundamental principle of American idealism and
deployed our military and intelligence apparatus to serve the
mercantile interests of large corporations and particularly, the
petroleum companies and military contractors that have literally
made a killing from these conflicts.

Moreover, a Foreign Policy Journal article[12] tells us that the

White House had made the decision to support the armed radical
Jihadists in Syria (that would later emerge as ISIL and Jabhat Al-
Nusra) despite the warnings of the intelligence agencies, which
provided for the advent of the Islamic State. This amazing
information was confirmed by former head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lieutenant General Michael Flynn after
he resigned from his post in April 2014, much to everyones
surprise- who was previously the Director of information for the
Center of command of special operations and, in that capacity,
had the main mission to hunt down Usama Bin Laden and
dismantle Al-Qaeda.

It is worth noting that this piece of information and other related

revelations have been reported in a documentary film[13]
broadcast by ARTE-TV channel, which explains how, from Bush to
Obama, America has left prosper the blind terror that Daesh took
over. In this film, former members of the intelligence community,
representatives of U.S. forces in Iraq, former Secretary of State
Colin Powell and terrorism experts trace, with supporting evidence
and archives, the thirteen years of the lost war on terror.

Last but not least, during the 2016 presidential campaign, the
GOP nominee, Donald Trump, said[14] that he meant exactly what
he had declared previously in Florida, when he called President
Barack Obama the founder of ISIS. And when the conservative
radio show host, Hugh Hewitt, tried to clarify Trumps position by
saying he understood him to mean that he (Obama) created the
vacuum, he lost the peace, D. Trump objected, declaring No, I
meant hes the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable
player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too,
by the way, Hillary Clinton.

Frances role

In his latest book[15], French philosopher Michel Onfray states

that terrorist Islam was partially created by the bellicose West.
Denouncing what he calls contemporary colonial wars
conducted by some Western countries including France, he argues
that Islamic regimes only started to threaten the West once, and
only once the latter had indeed threatened them by brutal force.

For his part, Pierre Conesa, former senior official in the Ministry of
defense, said[16] that his country is paying a high price for a war
that is not its own. In this regard, he cites the example of the
intervention in Libya where France has done on its own account
what Bush did in Iraq, which is destroying a regime and leaving
behind chaos it has no ability to manage.
In Syria, especially during the period when Laurent Fabius was the
head of the Quai dOrsay, this dubious interventionist policy
resulted in total support to the rebels fighting against Al-Assad
regime. Believing that the departure of the latter is only a matter
of weeks, Fabius said in August 2012 Bashar Al-Assad would not
deserve to be on Earth. And in December of the same year,
reacting to Washingtons decision to place Jabhat Al-Nusra on its
list of terrorist organizations, he declared: All Arabs were fiercely
against the American position because, on the ground, they
(the elements of Al-Nusra) do a good job[17].

In conclusion, we would like to invite the public to ponder the

wisdom of a thinker who once said that in the past weapons were
manufactured to wage wars, but today wars are manufactured to
sell weapons.
Yet unfortunately, it has to be recognized that the rhetoric on the
clash of civilizations, constantly and tirelessly repeated by some
since the end of the cold war and the subsequent disappearance
of the indispensable enemy, seems to have achieved the
objective assigned to it, chiefly by those who benefit from and pull
the strings of the perpetuation of conflicts all over the world. This
rhetoric has thus produced a dangerous clash of
fundamentalisms, which is updating the notions of revenge of
God, Crusades and Jihad, and adding new ones such as
islamofascism. The consequence of this dramatic turn of events
is illustrated, on the sought and obtained ground of confrontation,
by a clash of barbarities.

In todays increasing international turmoil, nobody should be blind

to the fact that the biggest danger associated with this change is
that since the end of the second world war, the world has entered
the age of the supreme weapon the atomic bomb- and other
weapons of mass destruction, and that extremists on all sides are
promising and fervently promoting a Cosmic War for the
triumph of Good over Evil. For some of them, it is a religious war,
the ultimate war prior to the Apocalypse or the end of the world,
whose theatre of operations one party sets in Armageddon and
the other in Dabiq, both places situated in the Levant,
comprising Syria which is being today put to fire and sword
Isnt it insane to believe that our civilized world is unable to find a
path other than the one leading toward Mutually Agreed
Destruction?

(1) Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations,

author of the book LOrient et lOccident lheure dun nouveau
Sykes-Picot (East and West in time of a new Sykes-Picot, Alem
El Afkar, 2014.
2 In Le MONDE Diplomatique, Une notion pige: quand parler
de terrorisme ? (A Tricky notion: When to talk about terrorism?),
August 2016.
3 A. Schmid & A. Jongman, Political Terrorism, 1988.
4 O. Libaw, How Do You Define Terrorism ?, ABC News
Network, October 11, 2015.
5 C. Friedersdorf, Is One Mans Terrorist Another Mans Freedom
Fighter ?, The Atlantic, May 16, 2012.
6 Norman Podhoretz, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against
Islamofascism, Doubleday, 2007.
7 2015 Global Terrorism Index report shows that terrorist attacks
are concentrated in just five countries with a Muslim majority:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria, totalling 78% of all
deaths and 57% of all attacks; the West is remarkably safe from
terrorism as 2.6% only of terrorist deaths occurred there since
the beginning of the 21st century (excluding the 3,000 deaths
from September 11, 2001, this proportion falls to 0.5%).
8 In our book LOrient et lOccident, op. cit.
9 M. Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britains Collusion With Radical
Islam, Serpents Tail, 2010.
10 R. Dreyfuss, Devils Game: How The United States Helped
Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, Metropolitan Books, 2005.
11 http://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in-
syria-mideast-conflict-oil-intervention/
12 B. Hoff, Rise of Islamic State Was a Willful Decision, 7
August 2015.
13 Titled Du 11 septembre au Califat: lhistoire secrte de
Daesh (From 9/11 to the Caliphate: The Secret History of ISIS),
August 30, 2016.
14 Tal Kopan, Donald Trump: I meant that Obama founded ISIS,
literally, CNN, August 12, 2016.
15 M. Onfray, Penser lIslam (Thinking Islam), ditions Bernard
Grasset, Paris, 2016.
16 See: Les attentats sont la suite logique des
bombardements (Attacks are the logical result of the bombings,
Le Temps, July 16, 2016.
17 See B. Collombat and J. Monins investigation: Daesh:
Autopsie dun monstre (ISIS: Autopsy of a Monster), November
20, 2015.
Posted by Thavam