March 24, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- THIS week’s attack was the
worst in London for 12 years and
has caused shock and horror,
especially for the way in which
a vehicle was so easily and
violently used to killed
innocent pedestrians. We will
know in the coming days the
extent to which this was an
individual attack or whether it
involved others and, if the
latter, why there was apparently
no warning.
The immediate reaction is to
think of the families and
friends of the victims and that
is right and proper, but in due
course we have to look at why
there is still this threat.
Britain has now been involved in
the “war on terror” for over 15
years, yet the sense of fear and
concern over the risk of attacks
is as high as it has even been.
Why is this so?
One core issue makes for
difficult reading and it
concerns the “disconnect” in
Britain between the terrible
event this week and the
continuing war in Iraq. It is a
disconnect that was very visible
when the Blair government denied
any link between the 7/7
atrocities and the war in Iraq
which was then at its height.
Now, nearly 12 years later, the
war goes on with a similar
linkage largely ignored. There
is simply no appreciation that
Britain is an integral part of a
major air war that began over
thirty months ago, in August
2014. It may take the form of a
sustained air-assault using
strike aircraft and armed drones
rather than troops on the
ground, but its intensity is
simply unrecognised in most of
the mainstream media.
People will naturally react with
horror to the attack, asking –
why us? Politicians and analysts
will find it very difficult even
to try and explain the
connection between what is
happening “there” and “here”.
The straightforward, yet
uncomfortable answer, is that
Britain is at war. It may be a
war that gets little attention,
there may be virtually no
parliamentary debate on its
conduct, but it is a war
nonetheless. So what else should
be expected other than it
sometimes hits us at home?
There are several factors which
underpin the situation.
The post-9/11 western-led
conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Libya have left three
countries as failed or failing
states, killed several hundred
thousand people and displaced
millions. This causes persistent
anger and bitterness right
across the Middle East and
beyond. While the Syrian civil
war started as the repression of
dissent by an insecure and harsh
regime, it has evolved into a
much more complex conflict which
regional rulers and the wider
international community have
failed to address. This adds to
the animosity.
The situation in Iraq is
particularly grievous given that
it was the United States and its
coalition partners that started
the conflict and also gave rise
directly to the evolution of
Islamic State (IS). Reliable
estimates put the direct
civilian death-toll there since
2003 at more than 169,000. After
a relative decline over 2009-13,
an upsurge in the past three
years has seen another 53,000
lose their lives through
violence.
And then there is the air war
against IS. Since that started
in 2014, the Pentagon calculates
that over 30,000 targets have
been attacked with more than
60,000 missiles and bombs, and
50,000 IS supporters have been
killed. There is also abundant
evidence from independent
sources that western forces
have, at the same time, directly
killed many civilians, probably
more than 3,000.
IS and other groups have no air-defence
capabilities yet are determined
to continue the war, seeing
themselves as guardians of Islam
under attack by the “crusader”
forces of the west. At a time of
retreat they will be even more
determined than ever to take the
war to the enemy, whether by the
sustained encouragement and even
facilitation of individual
attacks such as Berlin,
Istanbul, Nice and possibly now
London, or more organised
attacks such as in Paris and
Brussels.
The aims of IS in doing this are
three-fold:
* Retribution via
straightforward paramilitary
actions, responding especially
to the current reversals in
Iraq;
* Demonstrating to the wider
world, especially across the
Middle East, that they remain a
force to be reckoned with;
* Inciting as much anti-Muslim
bigotry and hatred as possible
in the target countries.
How should we best respond to
what has happened in London? Two
issues are relevant.
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First, the aim of IS and others
will be to incite hatred. Any
tendency to encourage that is
doing the work of IS. This can
and should be said repeatedly.
It is crucial at this time to
work as hard as we can to hold
communities together – “hope not
hate” is the way forward and
anything else does IS’s work.
Second, the fact that Britain is
still at war after 15 years
surely means that some serious
rethinking is required about
foreign policy. In the immediate
aftermath of the shock of what
happened in London, that may be
too much to ask, but in the
coming months we really do have
to do just that.
Paul Rogers is Professor of
Peace Studies at Bradford
University and author of
Irregular War: ISIS and the New
Threats from the Margins (I B
Tauris).
