Fighting Terrorism Page 12

  The second wave of international terrorism, that of the 1990s, is the direct result of all these developments. And the growth of militant Islamic terrorism, with independent states in the Middle East serving as its launching ground and bases of Islamic militants in the West offering alternate bridgeheads, has already been felt in the West in more ways than one. Just as Soviet-Arab terrorism produced its imitators, so, too, the growth of this kind of chaos is bound to have an effect on its would-be imitators. It may not be pure coincidence that the method used to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City was a mimicry of the favorite type of Islamic fundamentalist car bombing. If this kind of domestic international terrorism is not cut out at the root, it is bound to grow, with disastrous consequences.

  Undoubtedly the two greatest obstacles to dealing with this problem are, first, recognizing the nature of the threat and, second, understanding that it can be defeated. My first intention in writing this book has been, accordingly, to alert the citizens and decision-makers of the West as to the nature of the new terrorist challenge which the democracies now face. In this time of historic flux, Western leaders have a responsibility to resist the tendency for passivity, the temptation to rest on the laurels of the victory over Communism as though nothing else truly could jeopardize their societies. The leaders of the democracies must solicit the understanding and support of the public and its elected representatives for vigorous policies against terrorism. Obsta principiis—oppose bad things when they are small—was the motto of Israel Zangwill, one of the first leaders of the modern Jewish national movement at the beginning of this century. Alas, many of his colleagues did not heed this warning, and the Jewish people paid a horrendous price in the decades that followed. The same advice must be directed today to presidents and prime ministers, congressmen and parliamentarians, with one proviso: When it comes to terrorism, the bad things are no longer small. They have already reached disturbing proportions, though it must be said that they have not yet grown to dimensions that prevent them from being contained and defeated with relatively little cost.

  Which brings me to my second point. Once the nature of the threat is understood, the Western countries must understand that it can be fought effectively. Rather than adopting an attitude of dismissive or fatalistic acceptance, this book is a plea for action, which, if prosecuted resolutely and consistently, is bound to remove the threat or at least substantially reduce it. Of necessity, such action falls into the two domains we have been discussing: the international and the domestic. And as we have seen, because of the growing linkages between the two, these domains are not mutually exclusive. Action on the international level against terrorism impedes its domestic offshoots, and vice versa.

  I begin with actions which must be taken on the international level, because, as I have repeatedly stressed throughout, this is where the main danger comes from. It is the offending terrorist regimes which provide today’s international terrorists with the moral and material support without which they would not dare attack Western societies. What follows is a series of measures which could be effectively undertaken by democracies to stamp out terrorism within their own borders. This is what American administrators and lawmakers began to do in a systematic way only with the Omnibus Counter-Terrorism Act of 1995, a Clinton administration initiative forged in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Other leading democracies must follow this lead and reconsider their own positions as well.

  1. Impose sanctions on suppliers of nuclear technology to terrorist states. The United States must lead the Western world in preventing the proliferation of nuclear technology, fissionable materials, and nuclear scientists to Iran and any other regime with a history of practicing terrorism. While such action under UN supervision has been taken against Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War, little or no action was taken until recently against the Iranian nuclear program. Israeli efforts to warn of the danger of the Iranian nuclear program and the Clinton administration’s moves to prevent Russia from supplying Iran with gas centrifuges should serve as two examples of what needs to be done on a far broader scale. All nuclear technology and know-how should be denied to such states, for they will invariably deploy them in the service of their aggressive purposes. It should be noted that all nuclear proliferation is bad, but some of it is worse. Nuclear weapons in the hands of, say, the Dutch government are simply not the same as nuclear weapons in the hands of Qaddafi or the Ayatollahs in Teheran. What I advocate here is of necessity action directed first against the suppliers and not the buyers, and it must be led by the United States. The supplying countries must be told bluntly that they must choose between trade with terrorist states and trade with the United States. A special American effort must be made to harness to this regime of anti-nuclear sanctions all the Western countries, as well as Russia, China, Japan, and North Korea. The European countries in particular often hide behind liberal trade laws that enable European companies to engage in such trade without strict government supervision. The United States should insist that those laws be changed; i.e., that free trade, like free speech, has its limits in the supply of laser triggers, gas centrifuges, and enriched uranium.

  The United States Congress has successfully pressed for enforcement of other standards of international behavior by denying preferred trade status and other economic favors to states limiting free emigration, sponsoring terrorism, or trafficking in drugs. The Soviet Union was largely moved to permit Soviet Jews to begin emigrating during the 1970s when the Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, linking Soviet trade with the United States to freedom of emigration. Similar legislation could create an official list of states supplying nuclear technologies to other countries, which could likewise be subjected to trade sanctions. Countries which have international trading regulations so liberal that they can trade in nuclear death will find themselves having to change their laws or feel the pain where it matters to them most—in their pocketbooks. Such a list should in theory be maintained by the United Nations in order to have maximum effect, but this is not the essence. The main point is that the United States should adopt a firm policy and then proceed to bring other nations on board. And quickly.

  2. Impose diplomatic, economic, and military sanctions on the terrorist states themselves. This tested measure has not been applied in any serious fashion to the twin sources of today’s militant Islamic terrorism, Iran and Sudan. Where it has been systematically applied, against Libya and Iraq, it has had measurable success. Those regimes have consciously backed off from the energetic sponsorship of terrorism that characterized their conduct in the 1970s and 1980s. In general, the dosage of these sanctions should be on an escalating scale, beginning with closing down embassies, proceeding to trade sanctions, and, if this fails, considering the possibility of military strikes such as those delivered against Libya in 1986, which all but put this fanatical regime out of the terrorism business. While military measures should not be the first option, they should never be excluded from the roster of possibilities. The mere knowledge by a terrorist state that it is opening itself up to the possibility of painful and humiliating military reprisals may be enough to cool the heels of dictators entertaining the thought of undertaking terrorist campaigns against the West or its allies. Iran in particular is susceptible to economic pressure. The oil-exporting Islamic republic is virtually a single-crop economy, and imposition of a tight blockade against Iranian oil sales will undoubtedly induce in Teheran a prompt reevaluation of the utility of even indirect terrorist tactics.

  Similarly, the special exemption hitherto granted to Syria must be brought to an end. It is not enough anymore that Syria merely continues to appear on Washington’s list of states sponsoring terror. Over a dozen terrorist groups are openly housed in Damascus, and many have training facilities in the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. These groups prosecute terrorist campaigns against Israel, as well as Jewish and non-Jewish targets throughout the world. The U.S. State Department’s own 1994 report on terrorism mentions am
ong these groups Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine—General Command (PFLP–GC), Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Japanese Red Army, and the Kurdish PKK.1 The idea that one of the most unrelenting of terrorist regimes should be exempted from sanctions so as not to “offend” its leader and harm the “prospects of peace” is an absurdity. Both the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain and South Africa’s odious system of racial laws were eventually brought down by a firm Western policy of linking sanctions to an improvement in Soviet and South African policies, and there is no reason that a much less powerful state such as Syria should be any less responsive when faced with determined pressure over a protracted period. The tendency to try and bribe Syria to desist from its support for terrorism—with American aid and Israeli concessions on the Golan Heights—is the exact opposite of what is needed. As in the case of the PLO in Gaza, the most that can be hoped for from buying off Syria is a tactical cessation of its proxy terrorism aimed at extracting the latest round of concessions; in this case, the terror inevitably resumes once these concessions have been digested and it looks like the next round is to be had. The cessation of terrorism must therefore be a clear-cut demand, backed up by sanctions and with no prizes attached. As with all international efforts, the vigorous application of sanctions to terrorist states must be led by the United States, whose leaders must choose the correct sequence, timing, and circumstances for these actions.

  3. Neutralize terrorist enclaves. Efforts must be made to stop terrorism from areas that are less than independent states but nevertheless serve as breeding grounds for terrorists. The most notable include the Hizballah enclave in southern Lebanon, the PLO–Hamas fiefdom in Gaza, the Kurdish PKK strongholds in northern Iraq, and the Mujahdeen enclave on the Pakistani border with Kashmir. What characterizes all these enclaves is the professed claim of the local government that it is unable to prevent the terrorism launched from its domain. Sometimes, as in Lebanon, this is indeed the case; the Lebanese government is virtually powerless to prevent Hizballah terrorism, but Syria and Iran—which respectively control the territory from which Hizballah operates and which give it funds and ideological backing—are perfectly able to do so. Syria and Iran should therefore be pressed to cease not only terrorism which they sponsor directly from within their own borders but also the proxy terrorism which they protect and encourage from beyond their frontiers.

  The same applies to Iranian and Syrian agitation in Gaza, with one crucial difference. Here, the local PLO authority is perfectly capable of undertaking a variety of measures that would totally dismantle rather than buy off Gaza-based terrorist organizations, but refuses to do so. The United States and other Western countries should in turn refuse to transfer any funds to the PLO until it lives up to its part of the Oslo agreement, beginning with a relentless and all-encompassing war against terrorism. And if such activity is still not forthcoming, then it must be understood that Israel will have to take action against the sources of terror, precisely as it does in south Lebanon and anywhere else.

  4. Freeze financial assets in the West of terrorist regimes and organizations. This measure was used intermittently by the Carter and Reagan administrations during the American embassy hostage crisis and its aftermath. It should be expanded today to include the assets of militant Islamic groups which keep monies in the United States for the purpose of operating there and elsewhere. In addition, the solicitation and transferring of funds for terrorist activity in the United States and abroad should be absolutely prohibited. Throughout the democracies, the funding of terrorist activity should be considered a form of participation in terrorist acts.

  5. Share intelligence. One of the central problems in the fight against international terrorism has traditionally been the hesitation of the security services of one nation to share information with foreign services. In this regard, countries have often viewed “their” terrorists as though they were the only terrorists worth fighting, while turning a blind eye to activities hostile to other governments. The trouble with this method is not only that it is of questionable morality; the fact is that it does not work. Terrorists hide behind the mutual suspicions between the Western security services, seeming to be attacking a particular nation when in fact they often view the entire West as a common society and a common enemy. Only through close coordination between law enforcement officials and the intelligence services of all free countries can a serious effort against international terrorism be successful.

  It should be made clear that I am not speaking here of warnings of impending terrorist attacks. Those are now shared instantaneously by virtually all the intelligence agencies of the West. What is not shared is basic data about terrorist organizations, their membership and their operational structure. These “cards” are often withheld from the intelligence services of other countries (and sometimes even from a rival service in the same country) for two reasons: either to protect the source of the information or else, at least as often, out of a habitual organizational jealousy. But the absence of systematic sharing of intelligence is not a matter of petty one-upmanship. It greatly hinders each democracy as it struggles alone to get a full picture of terrorist activity directed against its citizens, with the inevitable result that lives are needlessly lost. If the democracies wish to successfully confront the new terrorism, there is no choice but for the scope of intelligence cooperation to be increased, and the scope of the jealousies reduced.

  6. Revise legislation to enable greater surveillance and action against organizations inciting to violence, subject to periodic renewal. In countries repeatedly assaulted by terrorism, a thorough review of the legal measures governing the battle against terrorism may become a necessity from time to time. There are those who say, for example, that the existing powers of the security services of the United States are sufficient to enable them to track terrorist threats; others disagree. I do not presume to enter into this legal debate over the specifics of standing American law. Rather, I propose that the laws of every free society must be such as to permit the security services to move against groups which incite to violence against the country’s government or its citizens. The test is simple. If the law does not allow a government to sift through the extremist splinters advocating violence in order to identify which groups are actively planning terrorist actions and to shut them down before they strike, then the law is insufficient.

  Legislation should be reviewed and if necessary revised to facilitate the following measures in all or part, depending on the degree of the terrorist threat facing each society and its particular culture and legal traditions.

  • Outlaw fund-raising and channeling of funds to terrorist groups. The funding of terrorist activity, both inside and outside a given country, must be made illegal. At present, terrorist groups often “skim” an allocation off charitable funds raised by sympathetic ethnic or religious organizations. Involvement in any stage of this process is tantamount to directly facilitating lethal terror and should be regarded as a crime of that magnitude. The American counter-terror bill more or less takes this step by outlawing fund-raising for any organization designated by the President to be a terrorist group. It does, however, include the bizarre proviso that such terrorist groups may apply for a U.S. government license to fund-raise for those of their activities which are “legitimate.” Whether such an approach can have the intended effect of stopping fund-raising for terrorism in America remains to be seen.

  • Permit investigation of groups preaching terror and planning the violent overthrow of the government. Surveillance of and intelligence gathering on groups exhorting violence and suspected of planning violent attacks must be permitted. If the security services cannot research which groups may be dangerous before they strike, there is little hope of being able to prevent terrorism from springing up again and again.

  • Loosen warrant requirements in terrorist cases. Search and seizure, detention, and interrogation may be necessary for short periods without a warrant where there is
a strong suspicion of terrorist activity. Strict and prompt judicial oversight of such actions can serve as a sufficient deterrent to most government abuses, but it is important to experiment as many democracies have done with the particular regulations. Law enforcement officials should be given considerable freedom to respond quickly to information as it is brought to light, but they should know that they will be subject to review of their activities after the fact.

  • Restrict ownership of weapons. Tighten gun control, beginning with registry of weapons. Israeli law, for example, requires careful licensing of handguns and prohibits the ownership of more powerful weapons, yet gun ownership is widespread. Forbidding the ownership of machine guns is not a denial of the right to own a weapon for self-defense; it is a denial of the right to organize private armies—a right which no society can grant without eventually having to fight those armies. The continued existence in the United States of heavily armed antigovernment militias numbering thousands of members is a grotesque distortion of the idea of civil freedom, which should be brought to a speedy end.