Posted on 04/10/2002 11:31:13 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Since September 11, evidence has mounted that Europe was a key recruitment, planning and logistics base for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Djamel Beghal, a French Algerian, is suspected of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris and of having recruited probable 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent now under indictment in the U.S. Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta operated undetected in Germany and possibly Spain. At least six British Muslims were detained in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo Bay; another tried to blow up a Miami-bound airliner just before Christmas; yet another with a terrorist track record was instrumental in the kidnapping and brutal murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.The pattern seems to be: acclimate them to the West in France, radicalize them in Britain, turn them loose in Spain or Germany. Yet, after an initial high level of mobilization was reached immediately following the attacks, European capitals seem to be settling into a discomfiting combination of complacency and finger-pointing.
France has threatened to withhold counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S. if it seeks the death penalty against Moussaoui. Nearly all European governments, as well as the press, have also carped about the United States' treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, downplaying the operational importance of interrogating them. French, German, Italian and Spanish authorities, meanwhile, point to Britain as a hub of al Qaeda activity, while their British counterparts accuse them of trying to divert attention from their own countries' hospitability to terrorists.
'Axis of Evil'
Such attempts to finesse the transnational terrorism problem might seem surprising. After all, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom have all faced serious terrorist threats on and off for the past 30 years or more, and some of them continue to do so now.
Moreover, this isn't an "axis of evil" problem centering on trans-Atlantic differences over the use of military force against rogue states or, for that matter, terrorists. These difficulties are likely to be the cause of major trans-Atlantic ructions in the near future -- in particular, on Iraq. Yet it is by now accepted on both sides of the Atlantic that the global counterterrorism campaign will hinge far more on vigilant law-enforcement and intelligence than on the rare headline-grabbing military campaign a la Afghanistan. Shouldn't a terrorist presence in both the U.S. and Europe be a source of unity rather than division at least on the nonmilitary level?
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The threat Americans now face from al Qaeda is qualitatively different from the one that confronted Europeans from left-wing groups like the Red Brigades and ethno-nationalist groups like the Provisional Irish Republican Army, or IRA. Those outfits used violence with restraint to preserve a place at the negotiating table and to an extent could be politically tamed, even in the case of Spain's ETA. Al Qaeda has no interest in bargaining and wants to debilitate the U.S. and its allies by inflicting mass casualties. So a European approach that combines hard security with political encouragement won't work for Washington.
At the law-enforcement level, the statutory counterterrorism regimes put in place in Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Germany to combat domestic terrorist threats that arose decades ago may equip them better for dealing with al Qaeda than those without any counterterrorism experience. A number of European governments have reoriented their counterterrorist focus away from local or regional terrorist threats toward emerging transnational Islamic threats and strengthened antiterrorist legislation.
In the U.K., for example, a combination of liberal free-speech laws and strict extradition standards have made it difficult for counterterrorism authorities to deter non-U.K. citizens from engaging in terrorist-support activity in Britain. In December, Parliament passed a law permitting authorities to detain noncitizens suspected of such activity indefinitely, and eased official access to financial and commercial information to facilitate investigations of transnational threats.
Moreover, European countries have shrugged off pleas from NATO Secretary-General George Robertson to improve European transnational counterterrorism cooperation. While the U.S. and Canada supported his calls for a double-digit-percentage rise in NATO's $147 million civilian budget at the December NATO summit, the alliance settled on a paltry 4% increase. This constrains the ability of European capitals to coordinate national law-enforcement and intelligence efforts as well as civil defense.
So the trans-Atlantic difference in threat perceptions persists. There is some justification for this: the United States is al Qaeda's prime bete noire and its preferred target. More broadly, many Europeans are inclined to be deferential to the opinions of European Muslims -- who constitute a larger proportion of the general population than in the U.S. -- because they fear community backlash. Europeans tend to think Americans are paranoid, while Americans tend to consider Europeans naive.
Please Spend More
This cleavage of attitudes has evolved in parallel with differing social philosophies: Americans are uncomfortable with excessive reliance on public services and more accepting of large defense budgets, but Europeans want to enhance such services at the expense of defense. For years, and particularly since the Kosovo War showcased Europe's military inadequacies, Washington has lamented the military "capability gap" between European NATO countries and the United States, urging its European allies, largely in vain, to spend more to close it.
The real issue in the past has been equitable economic burden-sharing more than saving lives. Now, however, European counterterrorist laxity has more dire implications, for there is a direct organic relationship between European and American security. Europe was used as a launching pad for the worst terrorist attack in history. Securing its territory against terrorist infiltration would shrink that option.
Despite the numerous trans-Atlantic historical and social differences over how to approach terrorism in particular and defense in general, there should be a natural convergence of European and American agendas. The U.S. will spend almost $40 billion on homeland security in the next fiscal year. As American territory becomes less vulnerable, terrorists will find Europe -- as the United States' cultural and political cousin -- a more attractive target of opportunity. In that light, vigorous European counter-terrorist policies are not only an alliance obligation but a matter of self-protection.
Mr. Stevenson is editor of "Strategic Survey" and research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
It's going to be VERY interesting watching the reactions of the EUnuchs and the chattering classes in Europe in the days following the first major 9/11-style terrorist attack on their soil.
I predict we'll be laughing our butts off about how quickly they turn so hawkish it'll make Paul Wolfowitz look like Pete Seeger.
Even if they are spared because their leaders toady to Arafat and Hussein, when this thing heats up and whole cities start getting taken out by anthrax attacks, I wonder how they will sleep at night, knowing 20% of their population belongs to the Crazy Islamic Brotherhood. My guess is we are going to see some major "ethnic cleansing" in Europe in the post-World War III period -- say 2-3 years down the pike. I doubt the muslims will be as docile as the Jews were sixty years ago, however.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.