A serious setback

A cartoon in The Observer, London, the other day showed President Bush atop a huge Republican elephant, saying: "My fellow Americans, I've made the world a much more dangerous place which is why you need me to protect you."

That probably sums up where the world stands today, three years after the 9/11 atrocity. Events on that day shook America and shook the world. The attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon near Washington DC, whatever their political motivation, were condemned everywhere as an outrage against innocent civilians.

In the sudden anger and anguish caused by the terrorist strikes, people were prepared to overlook the civilian casualties inflicted by America's nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unjust and cruel war in Vietnam.

The Bush administration's knee-jerk reaction has deprived the US of much of the sympathy and understanding that 9/11 had generated. It has lost none of its power, indeed it has employed it with astounding arrogance, nor its domination of the international economic scene. But respect for the US as a great democracy has suffered a serious setback.

The 9/11 tragedy has all but been pushed into the background by the mayhem that has been let loose in Iraq and the blundering pursuit of an illegal war. The images from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have overtaken the shattering images of the Twin Towers.

The biggest demonstrations against the Iraq war were mobilized by secular and democratic groups in the West, but the Bush administration's evangelical conduct of post-9/11 policy has seen an unprecedented rise in religious militancy in Iraq and several other Muslim countries.

Governments in Muslim countries, allies of the US, have themselves become targets of fanatical, religiously-motivated terrorism. It is impossible to estimate the total number of civilian lives lost in Afghanistan and in Fallujah, Baghdad, Najaf, Basra and Karbala.

US forces have also suffered: the death toll of American servicemen in Iraq since the invasion 18 months ago crossed the 1,000 mark this week. An opportunity has been provided to authoritarian regimes to suppress civil liberties and bypass established constitutional and legal procedures in the name of the war on terror.

Russia too now threatens to invoke the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes. There is utter chaos in large parts of this region, including Afghanistan, as a legacy of 9/11.

Sadly, no one knows an easy way out of the present mess. One thing is clear however: US military might has not been able to win the peace. The perpetrators of the 9/11 action have not been able to take us any closer to a redressal of the injustices and oppression that made them undertake their suicide mission.

America is more entrenched in this region than ever before, and everything that has followed 9/11 has brought misery to Muslims and confused jihad with sanction for terrorism against civilians.

The political initiative has slipped into the hands of obscurantists. Al Qaeda and its offshoots remain active, despite the successes in weakening the financing network of militant organizations.

Only one person, a Moroccan student, has been convicted for 9/11, and that too for providing logistical support to the alleged masterminds. New pockets of trouble have been created, as in Wana, where the sledgehammer tactics of the Pakistani government have so far failed to solve the problem.

It is time for everyone to pause and take a deep breath and go back to the drawing board. A far greater reliance on political methods and better intelligence gathering seems the only alternative to the present total and counter-productive dependence on brute force.

Attempts to establish either indispensability or economic or political domination on the basis of sheer force will only aggravate the damage done by 9/11.

Killing in Jakarta

While the death toll from Thursday's deadly blast at the Australian embassy in Jakarta seems relatively low, the attack, coming just two days before the third anniversary of 9/11, is a grim reminder of the deep roots terrorism has struck across the world.

True, Indonesia is no stranger to such acts of militancy: the 2002 Bali massacre that killed more than 200 people and last year's hotel explosion in Jakarta in which 12 people lost their lives are just two among a series of devastating attacks. But what is alarming is that militant outfits worldwide are proving themselves resilient to the superior war technology being used by Washington and its allies in fighting them.

In the case of Indonesia, all fingers are being pointed at the Jemaah Islamiya, known for its links to Al Qaeda and blamed for similar bomb attacks in the past. With its forces in Iraq, Australia is a target.

What is plain is that behind the rising wave of terrorism is an acute sense of grievance and injustice felt by Muslims everywhere over the persecution of the Palestinians and the happenings in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other igniting factors are the despotic policies and actions of many Muslim governments in alliance with the US in the latter's war on terror. Along with causes of socio-economic deprivation affecting millions of Muslims, these festering wounds will have to be removed expeditiously if progress towards rooting out militancy and terror is to be achieved. Unless a beginning is made in this direction, attacks such as those in Jakarta and elsewhere will continue to multiply.

Criminals in uniform

The confession of a policeman arrested this week in Karachi that he was involved in over 20 robberies is disturbing and provides one more proof that those entrusted with the enforcement of law are fast becoming its worst offenders.

In fact, several such cases have surfaced of late linking policemen to crime. One policeman was reportedly found involved in a Rs 13-million robbery, another was discovered to be the leader of a gang of thieves while a sub-inspector was caught travelling in a stolen car with an unlicensed pistol.

Then last month, in Lahore, police at the city's ant-car lifting cell were alleged to be involved in a scam through which recovered stolen cars were sold to spare parts or scrap dealers.

Although action is taken sometimes against such bad eggs, the effectiveness of internal inquiries is open to question, given that such measures do little more than result in a transfer or a temporary suspension as a form of punishment.

The fact is that such inquiries, as a recent one investigating the mysterious deaths by burning of two men in police custody in Karachi, often lead to shielding of the offenders.

Last year, a 13-year-old boy in Karachi took his own life after he was sexually assaulted by two policemen after being stopped at a picket near his home. Earlier this year, an even more tragic and gruesome case involving the rape and death of two girls surfaced and again their families accused some policemen of the heinous crime.

As usual, after the initial hue and cry, the matter was quietly hushed up. What has happened as a result is that the police's credibility in the public eye is so low that it cannot be expected to conduct an impartial inquiry when such incidents occur.

Hence, in addition to internal inquiries leading to the prosecution of the offenders (which often suffers because of lack of proof or witnesses), the public safety commissions as envisaged by the police order of 2002 should be activated. That body can be expected to act as an independent monitor.