January 19, 2006
Radical Islam’s Engine
By Tom
Bevan
Think about
terrorism as a machine currently in motion. We want to slow it
down, to grind it to a halt, if possible, and radical Islamists
want the machine to move faster, gaining in momentum and force.
If you were to pop the hood on this metaphorical terror machine,
you’d find three major components keeping its engine running:
technology, tolerance, and money. The good news, as well as the
bad, is that terrorists rely heavily on the Western world for
all three.
Technology
No single
factor has been more empowering or more enabling for terrorists
than the rapid spread of technology. Cell phones, the Internet,
and the ease with which money can be moved electronically have
all dramatically improved the logistical operations of terrorists
working around the globe.
Advances
in media technology have ensured that no matter where terrorists
strike, images of the attacks will be transmitted instantaneously
around the globe, vastly enhancing the terrorists’ ability
to instill fear and manipulate public opinion.
Lastly, advances
in knowledge and access to materials for the development of chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons have significantly increased the
terrorists’ potential capability to inflict catastrophic
damage and loss of life.
Obviously,
this is all a bit of history. We cannot halt the spread of technology.
The West may be able to slow its march from time to time - like
bombing Osirak, busting up the A.Q. Kahn network and potentially
striking Iran, for instance – but we cannot prevent the
inevitable. The greater challenge lies in doing the best we can
to minimize the benefits terrorists receive from using modern
technology.
This could
involve doing a number of things, but certainly one of the priorities
must be monitoring the electronic communications of suspected
terrorists as effectively as possible. Setting aside a discussion
of whether President Bush violated the law or not in authorizing
the NSA surveillance program, we need to make sure our laws and
procedures are streamlined, updated, and make full use of our
superior technology to deprive terrorists of the benefits of theirs.
Tolerance
Free, open
societies are the hallmark of the West – and the United
States in particular. Our unwavering commitment to freedom, by
its very nature, ensures that we will remain vulnerable to terrorist
attacks in the future.
Tolerance,
however, is very different from freedom. Radical Islamists exploit
the openness of Western societies to operate, but the engine that
keeps the terrorist machine running relies in part on the devotion
of Western elites to the concept of tolerance and multiculturalism.
We see this
manifest across Western Europe - and to a lesser degree in the
United States - in a hesitancy and/or unwillingness to employ
tactics like common sense profiling, to toughen immigration and
visa standards, and to crack down on radicals preaching jihad
for fear of violating codes of political correctness or offending
the sensibilities of Muslims.
It is one
of the great ironies of the current struggle: a group who despises
tolerance and whose main goal is to impose a sharia-based Caliphate
across vast portions of the globe finds additional protection
in the excessive tolerance of the West. One of the traditional
cultural strengths of Western society has now become a vulnerability
in fighting terrorism.
Money
The greatest
irony of all, however, is that the West continues to fuel the
terror machine by remaining dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Though
obscured from view for years, the connection between oil-rich
states and the funding and export of radical Islam became quite
obvious after September 11, 2001.
Since then,
however, the United States has achieved precious little progress
in moving toward energy independence. Thomas Friedman outlined
the problem well in a column last week:
We
cannot dry up the swamps of authoritarianism and violent Islamism
in the Middle East without also drying up our consumption of
oil -- thereby bringing down the price of crude. A democratization
policy in the Middle East without a different energy policy
at home is a waste of time, money and, most important, the lives
of our young people.
One of the
great failings of the Bush administration, which has done such
an admirable job of aggressively fighting the threat of terrorism,
has been the lack of urgency it has given to the issue of energy
independence.
Yes, there
has been stiff resistance from Democrats and the left on the need
to boost domestic production. We should have opened ANWR three
years ago. But domestic production is only one piece of a short-term
puzzle and does nothing to address a long-term solution. At this
point we should already be halfway through a Manhattan Project
designed to perfect hydrogen fuel technology and have massive
government based incentives for car manufacturers and consumers
to switch to hybrid vehicles.
These types
of changes are happening, but too slowly and without the constant
pressure and attention they demand. We still aren’t treating
energy independence as a vital component of national security.
That’s a mistake. In the meantime, our dollars, pounds,
and euros continue to flow to countries that use their oil wealth
to either actively or passively support the people and the ideology
working for our destruction.
Though we
didn’t realize it at the time, the terrorist machine was
set in motion a long time ago. Slowing the machine down is going
to be a decades-long process as well, but we’ll have a much
better chance of success if we focus on trying to take away the
things that make it run.
Tom
Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics.
