7 Years Later: Could Civilians Be Key to Winning the War on Terror?

Except for Iraq, the world has not seen a sustained increase in deaths from terrorism; after the horrific 2001 spike, terror fatalities returned to levels of the late 90s. In fact, by mid-2007, outside Afghanistan, Iraq, and other "insurgency theaters," says Virginia-based think-tank The Intelcenter, fatalities from Islamist attacks around the world have declined by more than 90 percent from their 2004 high point.

So reports Human Security Brief 2007 from the Human Security Report Project of the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

What?!?

Didn't Senator McCain just remind us that "we live in a very dangerous world"? Yes, and he's of course not alone. From the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, we're told that the incidence and threat of terrorism are increasing.

Those who insist terrorism is getting worse count politically motivated killings of civilians by non-state groups in Iraq -- in 2006 home to 79 percent of global terror fatalities -- and distort the wider picture. Plus, their counting is just plain inconsistent, note authors of the Brief: The same analysts who include Iraqis killed by non-state armed groups among terror victims exclude similarly caused deaths in Africa's civil wars in their terror counts.

Most encouraging and underreported, the Human Security Brief describes a broad "popular backlash" against violent Islamist movements in the Muslim world. "Large and growing majorities of Muslims" also "reject Islamists' harsh and repressive ideology."

A July 2007 Pew poll in four largely Muslim countries found the number of those justifying attacks on civilians was down by half compared to five years earlier. A late 2007 ABC News/BBC poll found just one percent of Afghans expressing "strong support" for the presence of Taliban and jihadi fighters.

And such sentiments are shared by just about anyone we can think of, Muslim or not. From our friends and loved ones to John S. McCain -- we've all been victims of terrorism, directly or indirectly. Thirteen years after Oklahoma and seven years after 9-11, we know we may never be fully healed. But we might do well to see what can be learned from the experience of those who have continued to live with terrorism on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis.

More and more people around the world are disavowing violence against civilians, and support for terrorism is drying up. People are fed up, and that's good news -- because being fed up works. When regular people reject the mentality of violence, the reality of violence withers and weakens.

So how can we keep that trend going?

Not by fear-mongering that leads to a shoot-now/think-later stance and makes civilian casualties inevitable. Case in point? A Human Rights Watch report this week says that "civilian deaths from U.S. and NATO airstrikes -- almost all from unplanned strikes -- jumped nearly threefold between 2006 and 2007. And civilian deaths from airstrikes "act as a recruiting tool for the Taliban."

Killing civilians? That sounds like a sure way to reverse a hopeful trend.

If John McCain, Barack Obama, or any presidential candidate wants to keep America secure in the 21st century, they'll have to reject the disproved notion that military violence can be the primary answer to terrorism. Not only must we improve intelligence and develop smarter defenses, the U.S. will have to start trusting the good sense of people who increasingly reject violence, and prove that trust by working much harder to protect them from harm.

It turns out that changing attitudes about war and violence isn't some kind of pie-in-the-sky idea designed to make us feel better (even though we probably would). It's happening. And it is good foreign policy.

Does your presidential ticket know that?

Frances Moore Lappe of the Small Planet Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the author of sixteen books, most recently Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity, and Courage in a World Gone Mad.

Follow Frances Moore Lappe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fmlappe

Comments

[Liberoservative]

Powerful stuff

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/sep/11/endgame.iraq

[billinmodesto]

I've seen reports in the "media" that contend that the "Surge" is working because of a twin program that targets insurgent leaders and cadre. I haven't heard a name for it, but it sounds reminiscent of the "Phoenix Program" of assasination use in Viet Nam. Any thoughts?

[mommadona]

And, if this whole sordid thing had been handled PROPERLY and GLOBALLY as an INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL ACTION (just like the MAFIA)....the perpetrators would probably be in hand and paying for their deeds.

Civilians would have come forward without fear from the "crusaders" (BUSH and BLAIR = pushed the ridiculous ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS concept with impunity).

[lobear00]

Its very "Simple" America mind your own business,. Stay the "Hell" out of other Countries internal affairs. America, the Administrations, the Congresses, "Tend to your own backyard and stay the hell out of others. You people make "Religion look good.

[andrewmack]

Since this report came out there has been a major study published by the RAND Corporation that affirms many of our findings as this extract from a Christian Science Monitor OpEd by the Report's authors attests.

"Military might against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups isn't working – and no wonder. After studying the record of 648 terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006, we've found that military force has rarely been effective in defeating this enemy.

Indeed, the US reliance on military force – especially conventional military forces – has often been counterpro­ductive...­.

Since 1968, more than three-quarters of terrorist groups have ended because of a political settlement or joint policing and intelligence efforts...

A good start toward peace ... would be for Washington to stop thinking of this as a "war" with a battlefield solution.

Most US allies, such as Britain and Australia, already have. In Britain, for example, the government shuns the phrase "war on terror" despite a long history of dealing with such terrorist groups as the IRA.

And rightly so. Military force often has the opposite effect from what is intended. It is often overused, alienates the local population by its heavy-handed nature, and is a boon to terrorist recruiters.

The term "war" also has a symbolic cost. It feeds into the jihad or "holy war" concept that attracts the attention of potential terrorists by elevating them to "holy warrior" status. Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors."