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Posted on 01/18/2003 4:07:04 PM PST by Stultis
January 18, 2003
As a rule of thumb, the French media reported massacres in Algeria’s long-running civil war if the dead numbered more than 20; in Britain, the death toll had to reach triple figures or involve a spectacular atrocity by the Islamic guerrillas, such as the annihilation of an entire village, before it was reported. In France, the apparently endless cycle of violence in its former colony received limited coverage. In Britain it had little or none.
Few foreign journalists got into Algeria; those that did found reporting frustrating and dangerous as well as unrewarding. There was little appetite for news about this ugly, complicated, far-off conflict. And so the war festered on, and still does: only 11 days ago 49 Algerian soldiers were killed in an ambush.
That event might merely have been added to the long litany of bloodshed and then forgotten, had it not been followed by the arrest in Britain of a group of suspected Algerian terrorists allegedly manufacturing the poison ricin. The vicious but distant civil war that has raged on the edge of Europe for more than a decade suddenly seemed very close.
The horror started in 1992, when the Algerian Army intervened to overturn elections the Islamic fundamentalists were poised to win, sparking a brutal war between radical religious groups and the secular, military-backed Government. Neither side had a monopoly on atrocity. The victims, mostly civilians, are thought to number between 100,000 and 150,000 dead. It is a mark of a forgotten war when such a margin of “give or take” can be 50,000 lives.
The Algerian conflict was an ideal seedbed for Islamic terrorism. Like Afghanistan, the country was left to its civil war; as in Afghanistan, the result was an ultra-violent perversion of Islam, reinforced by poverty, international isolation and a culture of endemic violence. As with Afghanistan, the Algerian carnage was widely ignored by the West — until it arrived there.
The Algerian Army claimed to have killed 15,000 Islamists, but terror thrived: young zealots from Algeria trained in Afghanistan and alongside Chechen militants in Georgia. The radicals moved from slaughtering Algerian peasants to attacking foreign targets, first within Algeria, then in France, most dramatically with the bombing campaign on the Paris Métro that erupted in 1995. The hardline Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, fractured into smaller groups, notably the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, believed to be linked to al-Qaeda.
France launched a crackdown, and President Bouteflika of Algeria offered an amnesty; some armed militants gave up the fight, but others took it with them, to Afghanistan, to Chechnya and, inevitably, to Britain.
When the French authorities cautioned that Britain was becoming a magnet for a terror diaspora, the response was more a shrug than a shudder. But the arrests in London and Manchester, and the murder of a policeman, have finally woken Britain to the Algerian terror laboratory that has been churning out militants for a decade.
The contrast between the two countries is stark. In France, under direct attack, the inquisitorial judicial system went after the terrorists, but we preferred merely to “monitor” suspected militants. European diplomats grimly referred to “Londonistan”, pointing to our liberal asylum laws and tolerance of extremist propaganda in British mosques. As many as 40,000 Algerians may have arrived here over the past decade, but officials rechecking asylum applications say they have so far been able to trace only a fraction.
French fury at what they see as lunatic leniency on Britain’s part has focused on the case of Rashid Ramda, an Algerian granted asylum in Britain in 1992 and accused by France of masterminding the bombing campaign on the Métro. For nearly eight years the Home Office has refused to extradite Ramda; only after 9/11 did David Blunkett finally sign the extradition, which was then overturned by the High Court pending an evaluation of whether the suspect’s safety could be assured if he was handed over to France.
The French, signatories to the same human rights conventions as Britain, are understandably livid, seeing the Ramda case as symptomatic of a failure to appreciate and act on the Algerian threat. Frustrated by Britain’s policy of “watchful tolerance”, French secret service agents are now said to be conducting their own surveillance of the Algerian community in Britain.
The Government points out that the new Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act gives unprecedented powers to detain anyone whose presence is deemed “not to be conducive to the public good”, and next month two Algerians will stand trial charged with membership of al-Qaeda. If convicted, they will be the first people to be sentenced in Britain on charges related to international terrorism since 9/11.
Britain responded to last week’s events and the murder of a Manchester detective as if the Algerian connection was somehow a new phenomenon, rather than a well-established menace. The danger now is that after years of public or political indifference, the sudden and dramatic focus on Algerian terrorism may provoke a backlash against the thousands of genuine Algerian asylum-seekers who have found sanctuary from a horrific conflict.
Britain’s error has been to view the Algerian civil war as primarily an internal or a French problem, in rather the same way that European governments have regarded the conflict in Northern Ireland as a localised British matter. Many Britons, until last week, were unaware of the continuing civil war in Algeria, let alone of its relevance to Britain.
As Britain tries to tread the line between national security and preserving civil liberties, the failure to assess the Algerian threat adequately is a stark reminder that in the 21st century there is no such thing as someone else’s war.
Yep, and we've got plenty of fifth columnists now in Washington who, though only carrying signs, are actively playing their part as fourth generation warriors. They say they are for "peace," but watch them scream and agitate at any and all efforts by liberal and civil governments in the West to aid countries facing barbarous insurgencies. I was actually mildly suprised that the communists at the ANSWER rally today did not come out against the Algerian govt's resistance to terrorism. I did notice that they voiced support for war/insurgency in Palestine, The Phillipines and Columbia.
Here's one who should have been rewarded as a hero by the French and the British, but was poorly treated. After the ricin plot he may, hopefully, receive overdue recoginition and gratitude:
The Spy Who Came in From the Mosque
Reda Hassaine fled Islamist Algeria. In London, he infiltrated bin Laden's network.
How I was betrayed by the British
Reda Hassaine risked his life infiltrating Islamic groups for police and MI5. But after two years service he was betrayed, he tells Jason Burke
Londonistan bump. :)
It should be pretty worrisome when you find yourself wimpier than the French.
Bump!
But, we will continue to cloak this fundamentally religious conflict behind false socio-economic-political issues so that we don't (God Forbid) offend someone.
Semper Fi
This is just not true. In Algeria it is Islamists versus other Muslims (including individuals like Reda Hassaine, see msg #4). In Bosnia and Kosovo indigenous Mulsims complained bitterly to the U.N. about Salafist/Wahhabist propaganda and infiltration (from our "friends" the Saudis).
Even in the Arab world, where Islamism is strongest, there are outposts of at least partial freedom. Although executive power is held by the royal family, Jordan has an elected parliament. So does Kuwait. Their parliament has real power. For instance the Emir decreed in 1999 that women should be given the vote. The parliament, however, must confirm all legislative initiatives from the executive, and overruled the Emir's decree, BUT, and get this, in a Gulf State, by only three votes. Women often protest in Kuwait (they can drive and travel on their own, unlike Saudi Arabia) and most observers believe they will eventually get the vote.
In Iran thousands are protesting almost daily against the mullahtocracy, often shouting pro-Western and pro-secularist slogans. Iran also saw the largest pro-American demonstrations anywhere in the world in the wake of 911, when a quarter million came out to express their sympathy with us.
The support for Islamism varies widely in the Muslim world, from estimates of 95 percent in Saudi Arabia, to single digit percentatges in Indonesia.
Your implicit advice, that we should set ourselves against Islam in the WOT, is wrong. Combating Wahhabism/Salafism, and Shiite extremism, requires that we marshal all available forces -- military, societal and intellectual -- against it, both without and within the Muslim world.
With the possible exception of Iraq, where the Govt is most secular, (the Baath party is political not religious)
The Ba'ath party is fascist (originally formed in conscious emulation of the NAZI and other European fascist parties), but Saddam readily allies with socialists and islamists. He is our enemy, and so is Ba'athist Syria. What we are fighting (and this will become more clear as time goes on) is in part a red/brown/green alliance: communists, socialists and various fellow travelers; fascists, neonazis, ethnic hyper-nationalists and the like; and islamists.
I cannot think of a single world conflict that doesn't involve Islamic Fundamentalism.
How about Columbia (and other places in S.A.) where the insurgents are communists and narco-terrorists? And don't forget that we (and other states) still face cold war, that could go hot at almost any time, with China and North Korea. China continues making small accretions at her borders with intimidation and low intensity conflict.
I don't dispute that violent islamism is the main enemy at present, but it is foolish and extremely dangerous to assume that it is the only one, or to ignore burgeoning or potential alliances between it and other anti-liberal, anti-civilizational, pro-totalitarian movements and forces.
But the issues ARE socio-economic-political. Religions are aspects of societies and cultures and can evolve, sometimes quite rapidly, with them. The real conflict in the world for the past hundred years (at least) is basically between (classical) liberalism and totalitarianism; between advocates of liberty who advocate the good society, and utopians who insist on the perfect society and thereby set themselves against liberty. Islamists are merely the latest utopians, before them (and still beside them) came the socialists and the fascists.
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