Leaders at Conference Tackle Strategies Against Terrorism

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, July 20, 2005 – Speakers and participants alike focused on challenges at the opening of the NATO and European Union "Strategies Against Terrorism" conference here July 19. Michael McCarthy, deputy director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, opened the four-day conference by telling the participants from 21 nations and 19 speakers that the first challenge was to define terrorism.

"In my view it's a war on my family; it's a war on my nation; it's a war on my children," he said. "This is a very serious, serious problem and democratic societies are extremely vulnerable."

Conference moderator Nick Pratt struck a similar chord by quoting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said after the recent London terrorist bombings that "the greatest danger is that we fail to face up to the nature of the threat we are dealing with." Pratt is director of the Marshall Center's program on terrorism and security studies.

Navy Rear Adm. Hamlin Tallent, director of U.S. European Command's European Plans and Operations Center, sounded a similar theme in his keynote address. He also challenged participants to think about why they had come to the conference and how they saw their role in the war on terror.

"If you think about the war on terror and you think about Iraq, I think you think wrong," he said. "If you think about the war on terror and you think about people walking around with guns and airplanes flying and ... something detonating, if that's what you think the war on terror is, I think you need to think differently.

"This isn't something guys in uniforms fight," Tallent said. "The war on terror is much more complex than that, much more far-reaching than that. And if you look at the subjects you're going to talk about in the next couple of days ... most of the subjects you're going to talk about are nonmilitary, and they should be."

The key to success, he said, was that participants in the four-day conference understand the nature of the war on terror and are honest with themselves and each other about their role in it.

"There is no 'they,'" he said. "You are as critical to this as anybody else you know. Nobody else is going to fix this. It's going to have to be us.

"I think you are going to have to, as a group, be frank with each other in your break-out sessions," he continued. "As a group of nations, you're going to have to be frank with each other about what you are prepared to do."

"Originally, back in 2000 and before, for instance, al Qaeda had somewhat of a hierarchical structure, a leadership-to-operations-to-tactics kind of structure that you see at IBM or any large organization," he said. "What we see now is a change in this. We see the enemy changing into something that has less symmetric lines of understanding, less symmetric lines of power.

"So instead of having an IBM-type of organization, now you have a franchising situation," he continued. "It's like McDonald's. There are all different kinds of these things all over the world. They generally have their own way of doing things; they just use a kind of a common menu. And this is all supported by the Internet."

These changes have not only affected the way the terrorist threat is perceived, Tallent said. They also have changed the how partners in the war on terror deal with each other, and when and where those nations need to employ their resources to stop future terrorism.

"This redefining of the threat is the No. 1 priority now coming out of the Department of Defense," Tallent said. "What is the threat, really, to whom?"

EUCOM is pursuing an operational approach geared toward protecting America's homeland, its allies and its interests, Tallent said, which requires defining terrorism not just in light of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. "This requires us to define terrorism in light of what you, as a partner to us, think it is," he told the multinational conferees.

"In this area we live in, all 91 countries are sovereign," he said. "All 91 countries have their own interests to preserve, and it's not what the United States thinks that's important. It's what you think is important, and how can we assist what you want is what's important. And when you put that into a regional approach, it gets more complex but not any less true."

"People, organizations, countries are crisis-motivated entities," he said. "You don't act until after something bad has happened. Why? Because you didn't want to spend the resources or you didn't have the time. You wait until something bad happens. Then somehow you find the resources and the time, but now the bad thing has already happened."

EUCOM's strategy is to be preventive, as opposed to being motivated by crisis. "We have data that show that it is 100 times more expensive to wait for crisis and solve it, than it is to solve prior to crisis," he said.

"What kind of activities can we put in place that will stop that way of thinking?" he asked the conferees. "Where there are groups of people who are at this kind of risk - particularly when there are youth bulges in the population, high unemployment and these kinds of things?- Put it together, and you start to have a recipe for some problems."

Beginning to find solutions to those problems is the challenge facing participants, Pratt said.

"As posters across London read on July 8, 'London is open for business,'" Pratt said. "We need to take some inspiration from our British colleagues. We, too, need to be open for business as well during this week. We have some goals that are important to understand and that might require some fresh thinking, some uncomfortable soul-searching and not just a couple of headaches."

Pratt set the stage for what the conferees could expect from the rest of the conference. "We need to examine the motives and means of modern terrorism," he said. "We need to review the terrorist threat in Europe and Eurasia and our bordering friends. We need to review the global terrorist threat. We need to understand exactly what we're dealing with."

He emphasized the importance of understanding what the threat is in developing a strategy to thwart it.

"We need to assess NATO's and the EU's counterterrorism strategies or the lack thereof," he continued. "And lastly, we need to consider international and regional cooperation in counterterrorism. One country, one coalition, cannot suppress terrorism. We learned that the hard way."

Strong words from Germany Strong words from Germany

Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 08:22:01 -0400

Matthias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publishing house Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT (The World), Germany's largest daily newspaper, against the timid reaction of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat.

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG) A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in WELT AM SONNTAG (Sunday World):

"Europe - your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.

Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe where for decades, inhuman, suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our work for us. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, has the gall to issue bad grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of billions, in the corrupt UN. Oil-for-Food program. And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement...

How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany. I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our (German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists.

One cannot help but recall Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the laughable treaty signed by Adolf Hitler, and declaring European "Peace in our time". What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western Civilization's utter destruction. It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness.

Only two recent American Presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth. We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery.

And Bush, supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed. In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China.

On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those "arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes.

Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic, so devoid of a moral compass. For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes what is at stake - literally everything. While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare systems.

Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid vacation... Or listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and forgive". These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbor's house.

Appeasement? Europe, thy name is Cowardice.

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