Fortress Europe Getting Militarized

When I revisited Rome in 2006, I was disappointed to find that once wide open St. Peter's Square could only be accessed through metal detectors, at least during the pope's general weekly audience. I could not imagine it would become worse. But it has. The video news packages I have worked on this week about security measures in Rome, Paris, Brussels and other European cities all show the same scenes of heavily armed police and soldiers, patrolling major streets and landmarks. 

Apart from the quality of the picture and different uniforms, one could be watching footage from World War Two Europe. Officials in Brussels are shutting down schools, public transport and some businesses due to "serious and imminent" threat of terrorist attacks in more than one place.

Soldiers and police squads are combing Belgium's capital for suspects, lurking behind every corner. Officials are warning citizens to avoid crowds while promising to defeat terror. France has intensified its bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria as did Russia. Hillary Clinton said the United States must lead the fight against ISIS - "not to contain it, but defeat it." In this country as elsewhere politicians want to close the doors to Syrian migrants as a way of protecting the country from terrorist attacks.

About a year or so ago, I took an online course on terrorism offered by the University of Leiden. One of the things I remember best from that course is a plethora of facts and findings showing the disconnect between politicians and scientists regarding terrorism. For example, according to the scientifically collected data, more people have been killed in Africa, Asia and the Middle East by terrorist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Shabab and Boko Haram than in the combined attacks in Europe and the United States since September 11, 2001. One could add that more people in the United States are murdered each year in mass killings or "ordinary" homicides than have ever been killed by terrorists.  

Yet, as the Dutch academics pointed out, more money has been invested in the ramped up security, including new agencies in the developed countries than in those most hurt by terrorism. The Leiden scholars also pointed out that these efforts have not made the world a safer place. They suggested that the money would be better spent on financing centers to research terrorism, especially in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa,  the Middle East and other regions most endangered by violent groups. But most helpful of all, the online course suggested, would be for politicians to consult with scientists on the matter. ( I am not so sure when I see how some of our politicians reject scientific findings on climate change).

From what I can tell, this is not just the view of a bunch of liberal European scholars. Rosa Brooks, law professor at Georgetown University here in Washington, wrote in an article for Foreign Policy: "If we want to reduce the long-term risk of terrorism — and reduce its ability to twist Western societies into unrecognizable caricatures of themselves — we need to stop viewing terrorism as shocking and aberrational, and instead recognize it as ongoing problem to be managed, rather than “defeated.” "

Years ago, I interviewed Mark Juergensmeyer, the author of what is now a standard textbook on the subject, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. He noted an increase of violent terrorist attacks since the 1990s and said they are committed by people who see the world as being in some sort of "cosmic war." During the Cold War, he said, the world was divided into the communist East and non-communist West, with the Third World balancing in between. But after its end, "the rise of geopolitics and of a global economic system, although in some way unites everybody, it also disrupts traditional societies and gives a sense of uncertainty to people who feel that they are not a part of the new world."

According to Juergensmeyer, those who feel disenfranchised, especially  younger people, commit acts of violence or join terrorist groups whose leaders employ religious images of the divine struggle against evil in the service of their worldly political battles. The barbaric acts that seem senseless to most of the world, are what he calls "performance violence," designed to engage the world in the war, quite unlike the kind of terrorism associated with left-wing Marxist movements that was more strategic and had a more practical goal.

According to that analogy, a world leader who declares war against terror, would appear to be falling into the terrorists' trap. Many Europeans seem to think so. A German friend e-mailed me, "It's crazy. Total overreaction - like after 9/11. I thought the Europeans wouldn't do such a thing but apparently yes. And Hollande - like Bush - is of course internally weak and unpopular and now tries to exploit it to boost his image and electoral chances. It's terrible."

Pope Francis has refused to succumb to the terrorist strategy. In his address to the faithful on Sunday he stressed that the doors to the church will not be closed under any circumstances.

Ordinary citizens also have displayed more sang-froid after the Paris attacks than their leaders. Many said they were concerned, but won't allow fear to control their lives, and a video of a Parisian father telling his son "they might have guns, but we have flowers" went viral online. 

Of course, no political leader can ignore the terror threat, and short-term security measures are in order.  In the long term, I am inclined to believe in my grandmother's maxim "better to prevent than to cure " (a disease). 

What have we done all these years to predict, let alone prevent, the march of al-Baghdadi's forces from Syria into Iraq early last year? The sweeping victories by well armed and well trained fighters were a huge surprise to the general public who had never heard of ISIS. But sociologists, scholars, authors, even film makers have been giving us hints for years - decades - of what the future may bring. I mentioned Kureishi's movie "My Son, the Fanatic" in one of my previous blogs. 

Why is it that political leaders cannot read the writing on the wall when a lot of ordinary citizens can? Politicians react and over-react to compensate for the lack of timely action at a great cost to their nations, and it's just what the terrorists want. ISIS is now a household name in every corner of the world, partly due to their own propaganda, and partly due to the attention they are getting from the media and the political leaderships.

As Brooks and others point out, the best way to reduce the benefits terrorists reap from the world's attention is to stop overreacting. History shows that terrorism cannot be defeated by arms, and that safety measures work only until attackers figure out a way to circumvent them.  Even if you destroy one terrorist group, another one will crop up. But a lot can be done to prevent any new wave of violence by foreseeing it.  Closer cooperation between scholars and politicians might help produce a more successful final outcome in the so-called war on terror.

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Furter reading:
An academic study from 2004
http://www.humiliationstudies.org/documents/WyattBrownNY04meeting.pdf  

Recent article from The New York Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/nov/16/paris-attacks-isis-strategy-chaos/?printpage=true

Ed Warner on Drug Cartels and US Media Silence

My former editor, veteran American journalist Ed Warner, remains professionally active in his retirement in Arizona. His current area of interest is the power of Mexican cartels and their influence in our country - a subject I must admit to knowing next to nothing about. So I asked him to write about it for this blog. I think the information Ed provides here explains the widespread ignorance about the problem.
 
DRUG CARTELS AND AN ABSENT MEDIA 

Ed Warner, Carefree, AZ, February 23, 2015

Ed Warner

Why are some beheadings worse than others or at least more worthy of media attention? The question arises because videos of a few beheadings in the Middle East helped draw us into yet another questionable war, while similar grim videos are available in great quantities from Mexico. Yet we don't go to war there. Thanks to an absent media, we don't even know about the grisly killings.

In mid-February, 31 members of a big Mexican money-laundering ring were arrested in Chicago, a hub of drug trafficking. US Attorney Zachary Fardon said this kind of business is responsible for "countless devastated lives and ravaged communities," meaning both here and in Mexico. Again, hardly any media coverage while far away ISIS dominates the news.

The drug cartels, earning an estimated $6o billion a year from voracious American consumers, have wrecked much of Mexico and are an increasing presence in this country. Their danger is not just the drugs they purvey but the corruption that follows. It reaches into many areas of American life  - business, politics, law enforcement. In an important new book, The Accidental Super Power, author Peter Zeihan analyzes the interconnected US-Mexican crime scene and concludes: "More than China, more than Russia, more than Iran, it is the expansion of the Mexican drug wars to all of North America that is emerging as the single greatest geopolitical threat to the American way of life."

If only we knew about it. Why doesn't the media tell us? There are a number of possible reasons. First is Fast & Furious, the Obama Administration's delivery of weapons to the cartels despite their brutality that equals any on earth. Reputable gun dealers were forced by the ATF to sell arms to known criminals. If they refused, they could lose their licenses. The stated aim was to trace the guns across the border to higher ups who could then somehow be brought to justice. But the guns were never followed, and meanwhile they were used to kill many Mexicans and a few Americans. We await the real explanation of this debacle.

Faced with scandal, President Obama for the first time claimed executive privilege to prevent the release of key documents. Attorney General Holder asked the media to be "reasonable" in its coverage of what after all was a big story. The media complied and didn't look into it very hard. The exception was CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, who dug too deeply and for that was hounded by the White House in various ways and finally removed from investigative reporting and resigned. The media took note. Time to be reasonable. Let's not lose access to the White House.

There's understandable fear of the cartels who have murdered dozens of Mexican journalists. If they can avoid it, they don't want to harm Americans - bad for business. But as they continue to expandd in this country, who knows? Prudence dictates pursuing less dangerous stories, though the media might at least pay tribute to the Mexicans who take the risk, like Anabel Hernandez, who was given round-the-clock bodyguards after exposing the links between cartels and government. She writes in her book Narcoland: " "Currently, all the old rules governing relations between the drug barons and the centers of economic and political power have broken down. The drug traffickers impose their own law. The businessmen who launder their money are their partners, while some local and federal officers are viewed as employees to be paid off in advance, for example by financing their political campaigns."

The cartels finally came close to grabbing Hernandez when a group of armed thugs raided her house in December. Luckily, she was not at home and decided it was time to go. She now lives in California. If she isn't worth a story, who is? But try to find one in our media.

Much of the media is financially strapped today and in search of help. With wealth to spare, the cartels could lend a hand but at a price of course: no unfriendly coverage. Despite the clear lack of news of Mexican crime, no element of the media has been accused of succumbing, though rumors abound. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest men, has suspected but no proven ties to the cartels. A few years ago, he lent 350 million dollars to a needy New York Times and has since become the NY Times Company's largest stockholder. Let's see if the paper runs any cartel stories.

It's said these drug bosses seek power as well as wealth. It could be as stalwart Mexicans, they're aiming at a reconquest in their own way. Revenge on President Polk and his invaders who grabbed so much of Mexico. Now there's a story!

Finally, an element of ideology. Neocons, assorted arm chair warriors and profiteers all want US participation in the useless Middle East wars to continue indefinitely. Reports of actual danger from across the border would be a definite distraction and might lead to a rearrangement of US priorities and commitment. Please media, plead our warriors, don't do that and let Americans know what's happening in Mexico. That would be in the national interest, it's true, but not in ours.

The cartels fear only one thing: legalization of marijuana. As their main product, they would be crippled, maybe be put out of business. If US lawmen don't have to cart bales of marijuana around, they would be free to concentrate on the harder drugs and any other crimes the cartels devise. Meanwhile, the media could help by actually covering the story and producing for once a good, solid analysis of the power of the cartels and the extent to which they control Mexico and intrude on the US. Is this too much to ask?

About the author: Ed Warner who has been reporting for more than 55 years. He wrote for Time Magazine from 1958-1982 and wrote, edited and reported for the Voice of America from 1983-2005, and continues to freelance today. His articles have appeared in The American Conservative and on AntiWar.com and on his website: edwarner.org