Before we all quit the subject of terrorism and return to our daily grind, here's one last word. A terrorist strike is not an act of war, as Salman Rushdie has described it. It's an act of provocation. It's meant to enrage you, make you mad. In fact, make you so mad that you start making every possible mistake. These mistakes eventually hurt you much more than the terrorist strike itself.
See what Osama did to the mighty US. He sent in a ragtag team of jihadi boys to bring down the twin towers in New York, a symbol of American pride and power. An enraged US has been bombing Afghanistan ever since but has still not found Osama. Instead, it has killed thousands of innocent civilians and alienated the Muslims so much that Osama would find it much easier to get volunteers were he to plan another strike in the US. Also, for some strange reason, the US went out in the name of fighting terror and got caught in a silly and entirely futile war in Iraq. I guess the idea was to divert attention from their failure to nab Osama who, in all probability, has been hiding in Pakistan as this while. It got them into a worse mess and poor Obama now has the unenviable job of bringing the troops back home without it looking like a lost war.
But the biggest price the US has paid in its war against terror lies in its all pervasive paranoia. This paranoia has forced it to abandon some of its most cherished democratic ideals. Torture, illegal detention of prisoners, denial of basic human rights, once considered abhorrent, now flourishes out there (and on offshore locations like Guantanamo Bay) as part of their normal textbook response to terrorism. Yes, they've managed to ensure that there are no more terror strikes in the US, which is no mean achievement, but at what price? Many young Americans have lost their lives fighting wars overseas, making Bush the most reviled President in US history after Nixon. (Curiously, Nixon took America closer to China just as Bush brought India into the super power league. Or else, we would still be sucking up to the Russians as yet another aspiring third world nation.)
But the war against terror demonised the US in the eyes of many Muslims, not all of them radicals. This has helped the jihadi gangs and grown their fan following. To keep that hate alive and raging, these gangs keep attacking American targets, be it US embassies in Beirut, Bogota, Nairabi or Dar e Salaam or the Marriot in Islamabad. The rascals who attacked the Taj and the Trident in Mumbai specifically asked US citizens to stand aside and shot them. This has proved yet again that it's not easy to fight terrorism with conventional tactics of war. The terrorist plays a zero sum game. He has nothing to lose but his life and he's so heavily indoctrinated (some would say motivated) that he does not fear that loss. That's what makes him impossible to anticipate. You can be as strong as the US or as fearless as the Israelis, but you still can't finish off the terrorist because there are many more like him in queue, waiting for a one way ticket to jannat.
And that's precisely my point. We can't respond to 26/11 with glib solutions-- like let's take out the terrorist training camps or ban the Pakistan cricket team or stop the Samjhauta Express or, worse, let's go to war. That's precisely what the terrorist wants you to do. He thrives in the environment of hostility and blind rage. The civil Government in Pakistan would be the first to collapse and the army and the ISI would then take charge. That's what suits the jihadis. It want to embroil India in a bruising war that would hurt our economy, slow down growth, make the local Muslims feel fearful and vulnerable. Fear, in fact, best serves the cause of terrorism.
Ergo, we mustn't allow Pakistan to go down the drain. It would mean more joblessness, more poverty, more jihadis, more trouble in Kashmir, more bomb blasts, here, there, everywhere. We don't need dirty bombs going off next door. We don't need to ruin relations with the people of Pakistan by cutting off contacts we have built over the years, be it through cricket or reality shows because terrorism has to be isolated and punished everywhere, even in Pakistan. True, the Pakistan Government is weak, double faced, and keeps lying in the face of incontrovertible evidence. That's the only way it believes it can appease the mullahs and cling to power. But remember this, if democracy fails again in Pakistan, India's problems will only get worse.
There's only one way to fight terrorism and that's to build a strong, prosperous, just India where education and opportunity do not elude anyone. If we are successful in doing that, we will not only cock a snook at terrorism but we will also become the super power we want to be. Shall we focus on that in 2009 instead of war mongering and banning Pakistani authors, many of whom are actually our allies in the war against terrorism?
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