SEVEN7 Part 3: Terrorism Has No Face

The latest news from LONDON dated Wednesday was that British authorities said they were hunting for the materminds of last week’s bombings in London which resulted in at least 52 dead, that were carried out by four men, apparently Britons, who “blew themselves up”. The AFP report carried by the NST today said the four four were all Britons, of Pakisatn origin, quoting the Home Secretary Charles Clarke., who said the four were suicide bombers.
He did not know “what was the relationship of these four people to people more widely”, without ruling out government suspicions that they were linked to or inspired by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organissation.

The Unknown face of a terrorist

The profiles of the four suspects were summarised thus:

1st bomber: Mohammed Sadique Kan, 30, THE FAMILY MAN, married father of eight-month-old babyrgrew up in Beeston, Leeds; been to Pakistan for short periods. His picture was well captured by CCTV security cameras at King’s Crossjsut prior to the 8.45am incidents.

2nd bomber: Shalizad Tanweer, 32, THE CRICKETEER, a Leeds University sports science graduate; Loved cricket, visted Pakistan recently, worked in Father’s fish&chips shop.

3rd bomber: charred body found, may be of a teenager, dubbed THE MYSTERY MAN, believed to be also from Leeds.

4th bomber: Hasib Hussain, 19, THE TEENAGER, Leeds-born, attended Matthew Murray High School; “went off the rails” as young teenager but reformed and “suddenly become devoutly religious” two years ago.

The four were sen on security cameras as having traveled together – all carrying rucksacks. None of the four was on the files of security services, (British) newspapers said, making them so-called “cleanskins”, terrorists with no previously known link to suspicious groups and thus incredibly hard to track down before they strike.(Desiderata's emphasis)
The revelation that the bombers might well be born-and-bred Britons caused consternation in many papers today.
"The conclusion that the terrorists were home-grown is deeply unsettling. It does not, in any way, close this case," The Times said in an editorial.

What Desiderata can observe is that all the four suspects could be just the innocent-lloking lads in one's neighbourhood, who could be deemed to be unlikely recruits for any group specialising int "terror". Hence, there is NO DEFINITE “TYPICAL” FACE TO A TERRORIST, and that’s why this war against terror is akin to a modern urban guerrilla warfare, and it strikes “terror” precisely because they can strike at any moment, at any place, only the types of weapons are limited by constraining factors, such as operational expertise, availability and funding, and surveillance and defensive preparedness.

Just about a week after September 11, 2001 a close friend of mine, J. Vong, who runs a business website called KLSEtracker.com, also wrote an article in prose, titled “Hope Amid the Carnage”, to mark what must be the rudest awakening ever in both our lifetime. He wrote that his was a “small voice pleading for reasoned thought and action amid the raging fires for revenge and retribution”.

Vong said the September 11 attacks on the financial edifices of the world and the center of the U.S. military power “mark yet again the frequent and unwanted blips in the long-march of peaceful civilization. ... However, reconciliation will ultimately have to succeed conflict … history teaches us that. Rebirth and regrowth must follow destruction … markets will boom after doom.”

He stated that it served no useful purpose from the perspective of human history for revenge and retribution. “Ultimately, building an international resolve to establish a system that can open more minds and hearts will undoubtedly, bring civilization to its next stage of evolution. Tearing down the walls of religious and racial bigotry is what makes for global leadership and this is the greatest chance for a global initiative by the United States.”

WAR: Theirs Is Not to Question Why

About a year-an-a-half after the “terrorist” attacks on World Trade Centre, New York, and the Pentagon, Washington D.C., the United States and its chief ally, Britain, led a 40-day war on Iraq based mainly on the ground that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world, having in his possession “weapons of mass destruction”. As in any war, there would be dissent and debate on whether the U.S. was right or wrong or justified to go to war against the world opinion expressed via the United Nations. But once a government had decided to go to war, the army boys and girls did not have any choice but proceed to the battle-field.

Infortunately, war sometimes has been overly romanticised, especially in epic films coming out of Hollywood. But inevitably, Death stares at the soldier, torturing him, frightening him, sinking him into despair, and sometimes, when night falls like an enveloping blanket of temporary peace and relief, makes him ponder on the meaning of war, maybe the futility of it all.

Blood is shed on both sides of the warring countries or regions. Two years after invading Iraq. Have President Bush and Tong Blair seen any "democratisation" of the Iraqi government and people? Since then has the United States shown leadership, or even striven to understand the problem -- its root causes - besetting the Iraq nation? The two leaders consider themselves as liberators, and Saddam Hussein and his loyal troops as "terrorists".

But do they really believe the Iraqis interpret the US and Allied forces as liberators? The demarcation of thoughts would yeild a divided nation of two or more camps -- many Iraqis would perceive their soldiers as "defenders of the faith" and those who lost their lives in battling the invaders as "martyrs", and some who welcome the foreign troops, and yet other fringe groups who are mercenaries and carpetbaggers. This expalins why a couple of years down the road, young Iraqis would still stake their lives as "suicide bombers" to take the "enemy" troops with them -- in sporadic, yet reular and regualted attacks. That's the price the US and British troops have had to pay in over a thousand soldiers' death to date; how many will be lost before the troops got weary and disorientated and depressed. Was there not a lesson in the Vietnam War of the 1960s and '70s?

I must say with all humbleness and frankness, my opinion is that many parties believed it was not solely the noble intentions that motivated US and British actions in their war against terror. It's the ECONOMIC and SELF-INTERESTS, not the DEMOCRATIC IDEALLS and ZEAL, which are the primary objectives that drive the modern nations' motivations in international relations.

So the young lads motivated by their love of country, maybe faith if they felt it was also a defence of their faith, took up arms and sacrificed their lives as "suicide bombers", who are we to label them as "terrorists"? Looking at these youths' and their supporters' lenses, it's a "righteous" war they figt, and they die as martyrs in the eyes of their loved ones and homeland.

Desiderata would really not join the ranks hasty to label them as "terrorists". I may condemn their use of violence, even bemoan the bloodshed and express sympathy for the victims. But the US and allied forces also number hundreds, if not thousands of innocent victims -- civilians who were youths at their prime, fathers, mothers, children -- as collateral damage.

We will see more and more collateral damage in this journey of madness on both sides of the divide.