October 8,2008:
Now that the suicide bomber
terrorists in Iraq have been crushed (but not entirely eliminated), the army
and police are able to go after the lifeblood of terrorism; money. While the
terrorism gets started by anger at conditions that the terrorists feel are
intolerable, the violence is fueled by cash, as well as anger. And cash
requires thieving.
Islamic
terrorists pay for things by using many of the same techniques employed by
organized crime. That, however, has proved to be a major weakness, and is being
exploited to hasten the demise of the latest wave of Islamic terrorism. For
organized crime, terrorism is just another tool. For example, terrorism is
regularly practiced by organized criminal groups. That's how the famous ones,
like the mafia, or the Russian or Colombian gangs, make money and maintain
discipline. What separates "terrorist organizations" from criminal
gangs is ideology and goals. Organized crime groups just want to make money.
Islamic terrorists, however, have other goals. In this case, imposing Islam on
the entire world. In Iraq, the Sunni Arab terrorists wanted to regain control
of the government. In Afghanistan, the Taliban have the same goal.
Making money
using criminal methods is a means to an end for them, not an end in
itself. Keep in mind that terrorist acts
are a constant, and most of these actions are carried out by criminals in
pursuit of a payday. Political or religious terrorists are using similar
terrorism to either attract attention, as a fund raising tool, or a weapon to
win concessions from governments.
Historically,
it's quite common for terrorist organization, be they motivated by political or
religious goals, to gradually turn into largely criminal gangs. That's where
the mafia came from. Once a resistance organization (against foreign rulers in
Italy), it evolved into a purely criminal outfit, and migrated to the United
States, along with millions of law-abiding Italians. The IRA (Irish Republican
Army) is of more recent vintage (late 19th century originally, but revived in
the 1970s) that gradually turned into a group of criminal gangs that mainly
paid lip service to the IRAs political goals (of a united Ireland).
Iraq and
Afghanistan are two more recent examples. Iraq had dozens of major criminal
gangs even in Saddam's police state. Once Saddam was overthrown, these gangs
largely sided with the Sunni terrorists trying to put Saddam (or some other Sunni
dictator) back in charge. In Afghanistan, the pro-Taliban Pushtun tribes around
Kandahar turned religion into a cash cow, at least for a few tribes. Getting
run out of power took away their cash flow. After a few years in exile across
the border, some of the Taliban got funded (partly from one of their old
sources, the drug gangs), and were back in business.
What
eventually kills all of these criminal organizations is greed. Even the ones
with an ideology have members who are more motivated by the money, than the
politics, religion or loyalty to their fellow crooks. The use of cash rewards
for information, or the capture of key people, eventually brings in more and
more useful data. As time goes on, more and more of the terrorists can be
turned into double agents. Civilians, caught in the middle of all this, become
more desperate, and less afraid, of the terrorists. The useful tips increase,
and those parts of the organization most loyal to the ideology, are hurt the
most. The more purely criminal branches tend to survive, which is how the
surviving mafia organizations can trace their lineage back to 19th century
freedom fighters. But in the last two decades, the mafia and IRA have been
reduced to much smaller, and less effective, organizations.
In some
parts of the world, many people are normally employed in what would be
considered, in the West, as criminal enterprises. In Afghanistan, many of the
tribes out in the countryside, consider anyone not from their tribe as fair
game for robbery, extortion or kidnapping. Thus the Taliban will be around for
a long time, although in diminished capacity. Many of the current Taliban
leaders are discovering, as did leftist rebels in Colombia, that life's a lot
easier if you just ditch the ideology, and concentrate on the drug business.
The police
approach to terrorism has worked numerous times in the past few decades. India
crushed powerful Sikh separatists in the late 80s and early 90s by
concentrating on what were basically police methods of developing informers and
double agents and going after the key people and the criminal fund raising
activities. At the same time, Egypt was crushing Islamic radicals, using
similar techniques. Throughout the 1990s, Algeria fought a vicious Islamic
terrorist group, finally reducing their numbers from over 10,000, to less than
500. Same thing with Israels' success against Palestinian terrorists who were
successful, for a few years after 2000, with suicide bomber attacks inside
Israel. The U.S. adopted a lot of the Israeli techniques for intelligence
collection and agent development.
The United
States has had one major disadvantage; a severe shortage of people who speak
the local language. Developing agents in Afghanistan and Iraq thus takes a lot
longer, and it's necessary to depend on the local governments, which are
incredibly corrupt by U.S. standards. But after a few years, the American
advantages in cash, and combat power, become much more potent because of the
growing amount of good intel. This can be seen happening over the in Iraq, and
in Afghanistan. In both places, counter-terrorism efforts became more effective
as the amount of information about the locals increased.
Throughout
the Moslem world, lawlessness and crime are a major complaint. Both are
controlled, if at all, via police state tactics. This provides peace, but not
justice. Thus the anger remains. In Iraq, the police are now concentrating on
the criminals, but often doing so using traditional methods. Put simply, the
cops just go out and round up anyone they think is criminal, or they just don't
like. Many innocent people suffer. This approach leaves peace, and anger, in
its wake. The Iraqis see it as an improvement, but not a tolerable state of
affairs. In Afghanistan, the police are corrupt, and as likely to plunder
civilians, as they are to drive away criminals. Replacing gangsters with
corrupt police is not a long term solution.
In the end,
if you are successful in creating peace, and justice, you will have a lot fewer
ideological terrorists (interested in blowing things up in the United States)
and a remnant of criminal gangs interested in Americans as robbery victims, not
dead bodies. But creating peace and justice requires that basic cultural
beliefs have to be change. People have to believe in clean government and true
public service. You will never completely eliminate corrupt officials and
police. But it's a matter of degree. In the West, you have much less
corruption. That results in more prosperity and fewer angry people willing to
do violence against those who wish them harm.