Recently, the Al-Qa'ida organization headed by bin Laden and al-Zawahiri has become more active than ever before, showing its fighting tactics in Iraq's anti-US struggles. By working with Iraq's resistance forces, it has even forced US troops to retreat, winning a big victory celebrated by both the Iraqi people and these outside volunteers in Iraq. After the Iraq War, US troops in Iraq also began to feel that they were not simply fighting Iraq's ground troops, but they also felt they could not stop the Al-Qa'ida organization from infiltrating into Iraq from the outside.
On the other hand, people can frequently see all types of scary threats and warnings on the Internet. On 5 May, two Arab websites carried the recorded talk allegedly given by bin Laden himself. In the talk he called for killing US troops and high UN officials in Iraq. He even guaranteed 10,000 grams of gold to whoever kills Bremer, the United States' highest civil administrator in Iraq, and his deputies. He also guaranteed the same high award to whoever kills UN Secretary General Annan, or UN Special Envoy Brahimi to Iraq. The talk shocked the whole world. Both US troops in Iraq and UN organizations have now upgraded their alertness against any unexpected incidents.
How Powerful "Al-Qa'ida" Can Be?
Earlier, an Al-Qa'ida organization warning posted on an Arab website threatened that it would "launch strikes of even bigger scale against the Christians of the United States and the West because they had declared war against the whole world and Islam." Iraq's intensified anti-US struggles today not only reflect the national feelings of the Iraqi people and Arab states, but also the influence and power of "Al-Qa'ida."
While the situations in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan have gradually calmed down, the temperatures in two other hot points -- Iraq and Palestine -- are rising rapidly, setting a new course for the strategic shift of "Al-Qa'ida" volunteers. Iraq and the Middle East have become the places where they can display their prowess. The post-war troubles and the dilemmas that the United States now faces have immensely boosted the morale of Al-Qa'ida members, and many of them have gone to Iraq to take part in the "Jihad" there.
Along with growth of the Iraqi people's resistance forces, Al-Qa'ida has also become more active. Terrorist strikes have intensified, or have appeared from being nonexistent in the past, in Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries neighboring Iraq. Against the background of the growing anti-US sentiments in the Islamic world, the Al-Qa'ida organization's calls, while radical, have to a very large extent represented the wishes and feelings of Arab states and the Islamic world.
Meanwhile, the two big environments -- international and social -- not only have abetted the radical Islamic fundamentalism, but also have provided the fertile soil for the strategic confrontations between the Al-Qa'ida organization on the one hand and the United States and the West on the other.
Historical Causes
It was 1990 when the first Gulf War was going on and when the elder George Bush was the US President. That war was the first war that the United States, as the world's only superpower following the creation of the unipolar world, launched outside continental United States. The United States, through unleashing that blitzkrieg in the name of "liberating Kuwait," totally exposed its double standards set for Israel and the Arab world. The United Nations, in order to accommodate the United States, authorized it to use force against Iraq and also adopted a string of resolutions to impose sanctions against Iraq and mandated their implementation. On the other hand, the United Nations has taken no mandatory measures whatsoever on Israel that has rejected dozens of UN resolutions over a long period of time. That certainly resented Arab states and the Islamic world and helped shape the Islamic extremists' radical concepts toward the United Nations. Arab media universally maintained that, to devastate Iraq's military strength and economy, the United States' objective not only was one to preserve its strategic interests in the Middle East, but, to a very large extent, also to fight for Israel. Consequently, the balance of strength in the Middle East tilted totally toward Israel. Thus, the 1990s were the years in which the United States went all out to expand its spheres of influence in the Middle East and the world at large, and to manipulate the United Nations in handling international affairs. Because of the United Nations' impotence in handling issues concerning Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, North Korea and the Middle East, US hegemonism and unilateralism became even more unbridled. From the late 20th century to early 21st century, the United States totally controlled the process of antiterrorism, nonproliferation and economic globalization, so much so that the United Nations, which ought to be the most authoritative international organization, existed in name only.
Sensitive Topics About Defining Terrorist Activities
After the 9/11 Incident, many countries in the world have been quite vociferous in their debates over terrorism. On the Middle East issue, how to define terrorist activities has become an important and sensitive topic of discussion. The United States and other countries in the West maintain that all behaviors that cause abnormal elimination and loss of lives and property should be considered terrorist activities. Arab states, however, maintain that, when Israel has occupied large tracts of Arab territory and recklessly trampled on Palestinian people's rights, the anti-occupation resistances should not be regarded as terrorist activities. Thus, the definition of terrorism of the Middle East countries, the region that bears the brunt of the fights between terrorism and counterterrorism, is totally different from that of the United States and European countries. Arab media commonly believe that terrorist behaviors have these four types: behaviors carried out by individuals, by individual organizations, by individual countries, and by country groups; and that the behaviors are mostly political. One thing that Arab and Islamic states have particularly found unacceptable is that while the United Nations has indiscriminately condemned the attacks on civilians, and has even regarded the anti-aggression and anti-occupation armed resistance staged by Palestinian and other nations, as terrorist activities; but it has never supported and responded to the accusations, made by Arab states, against Israel's acts of state terrorism.
A Look at the World Affairs in the 21st Century
After the human society entered the 21st century, power politics, terrorism, and international counterterrorism are the three major trends that have appeared in the world. From dissecting the phenomena, we can see that the increasingly robust terrorist forces not only are the inevitable outcome of the deformed international order, but also are a counter force against power politics and hegemonism. When nations, countries and religions in the world lack mutual understanding and respect and do not want to coexist with each other, then attempting to completely uproot the menacing terrorist activities that can hardly be prevented completely is unrealistic. This has given rise to the many disputes and differences; and why hegemonists, developed countries, developing countries, the United Nations and other international organizations all have their own values. The Al-Qa'ida organization that represents the Islamic extremist forces also has its views that sound reasonable, even though their viewpoints are different. We can see from the Al-Qa'ida organization's strikes at UN personnel (in Iraq) that, if hegemonism and terrorism continue to grow, radical theories and radical behaviors of all stripes will appear one after another.
Why Does "Al-Qa'ida" Challenge the United Nations?
UN Stand and Inclination
Following the 9/11 Incident, the international community, instigated and led by the United States, whipped up one antiterrorist whirlwind after another. Soon, whether or not following the United States in countering terrorism has become a pressing issue that many countries have to deal with. Some countries, for the sake of their interests, have reciprocated the United States on fighting terrorism. Be it in the United Nations or in other international arenas, Arab states and the Islamic world have become the prey of the antiterrorist fight. Because the United Nations endorses whatever the United States decides, antiterrorist big sticks are flying everywhere. Many organizations with nationalist hues have been labeled as terrorist organizations. When the antiterrorist cause is targeted on a particular nation and a particular religion and makes no distinction between national resistance and terrorist strikes, it certainly will deviate from the course. In the eyes of the al-Qa'ida organization, the United Nations, during the course of handling the United States' invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and handling Palestinian-Israeli conflicts and Arab-Israeli disputes, only wants to smooth things over for the United States' hegemonist acts and would turn on the green light for it, rather than upholding justice. On the Afghanistan and Iraq issues, because of the role played by Brahimi, special enjoy of the UN Secretary General Annan, in mediating the various parties, has basically turned the United Nations into the United States' assistant or a hired hand. On its part, the al-Qa'ida organization maintains that the positions of the United States and the United States are essentially the same when it comes to the issues of antiterrorism and Iraq, with the only difference being that the former kills with a real knife and the latter kills with an invisible knife.
The Push from the Incident About US Troops' Abuse of Iraqi POWs
Moreover, the reason why the "Al-Qa'ida" organization has openly challenged the United Nations also has something to do with the recent exposure of US troops' abuse of Iraqi POWs. First of all, because of the growing number of similar problems in the Guantanamo prisons and in the concentration camps in Iraq, Arab states' longstanding pent-up rage against the United States and its allies has erupted like a volcano. US troops' misdeeds and evil doings that make people's blood boil have also prompted the Arabs who often like to recall their past glory to feel the humiliation that they are again conquered by heathens, and to associate their situation with the confrontations and fights between Islam and the crusades during the Middle Age. For those radical Muslims, they even forebode and worry about a possible eruption of a religious war in the 21st century. In the eyes of the Al-Qa'ida organization, the reason why the "Satan" can again tread on Arab soil is because the United Nations has failed to stop the United States.
At a time when feelings of people in Arab states and the Islamic world are running high, "Al-Qa'ida" not only wants the lives of the heads of US troops in Iraq, but also the heads of Annan and his special envoy.
Furthermore, on the issues about Palestinian-Israeli conflicts and Middle East peace talks, the United Nations has been taking a laissez-faire attitude toward the ways Israel and the United States in suppressing Arab states and Palestine. Although the United Nations has said something fair once in a while, the service is only lip service, whereas the Palestinian issue is the "eternal heartfelt pain" of Arab states and the Islamic world.
(Description of Source: Beijing Renmin Wang (Internet Version-WWW) in Chinese; website bears copyright claim of Beijing Renmin Ribao (Internet Version--WWW) in Chinese http://www.peopledaily.com.cn)
Translated from the original by WNC.
toolkit.dialog.com/intranet/cgi/present?STYLE=739318018&PRESENT=DB=985,AN=189150E-mail this article