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Got Milk? Pakistan-Gulf’s food granery! Impact and Analysis

2 Responses to “Got Milk? Pakistan-Gulf’s food granery! Impact and Analysis”

1. Vajood » Blog Archive » Agri-Business: The Evolution of the Pakistani Economy?, on May 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm Said:

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2. John Maszka, on June 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm Said:

   Countering International Terrorism

   “We are today a Nation at risk to a new and changing threat. The terrorist threat to America takes many forms, has many places to hide, and is often invisible”
   - President George W. Bush, 16 July 2002 (reprinted in Baird, 2006:415).

   It may be unfair, but many critics have claimed that the only thing that’s “invisible” is the Bush administration’s clear plan to alleviate terrorism. Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress (2006) surveyed “more than 100 of America’s top foreign policy experts” both Republicans and Democrats, and asked them if they thought America was winning the war on terror. “A bipartisan majority (84 percent) of the index’s experts say the United States is not winning the war on terror. Eighty-six percent of the index’s experts see a world today that is growing more dangerous for Americans.” The majority expressed criticism of President Bush’s policy initiatives since 9/11, specifically the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, America’s policy toward its European allies, North Korea, Iran non-proliferation, and arms control.
   In a discussion about President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address, Amy Zalman (2007) concludes that there are “almost no specific actions or policies recommended to counter terrorism. This is very curious for what is presented to us as among the most monumental and basic menaces to Americans in their entire history.” It’s actually not so curious when one considers the overwhelming lack of agreement and understanding over what terrorism is, what causes it, and how to counter it effectively. There is also substantial disagreement on which actual threats posed by terrorism are the most crucial. Let’s begin by examining what terrorism is.

   What is Terrorism?

   “…we’re involved in an ideological struggle between extremists and radicals versus people who just simply want to live in peace.”
   -President George W. Bush, November 13, 2006

   To discuss terrorism intelligently, it is necessary to define it succinctly. Boaz Ganor stresses the importance of defining terrorism. “Since terrorism is an international phenomenon, responses to terrorism must also be on an international scale.” Dr Ganor reasons that without a definition of terrorism “it is impossible to formulate or enforce international agreements against terrorism.” (p. 13). He also reasons that without an “accepted definition” legislation barring terrorism “has no value” (p. 14). Dr. Ganor points out that Schmidt and Youngman cite 109 definitions of terrorism obtained from surveying “leading academics in the field” (p. 1). They came away with the following data: 83.5% of those surveyed included violence or force in their definition; 65% defined terror as a political act; 51% included fear or an emphasis on terror; 47% included threats as an act of terrorism; 41.5% considered the psychological impact of terrorism in their definition; 37.5% noted the difference between victims of terrorism and its intended target audience; 32% defined terrorism as planned, intentional, or otherwise organized and systematic; and 30.5% focused on methods of combat, tactics and strategies in their definition. Alex P. Schmid, attempting to incorporate the essential elements from all 109 definitions, arrived at the following cumbersome and wordy definition:
   Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby-in contrast to assassination-the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human targets of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, as serve as message generators. Threat- and violence- based communication processes between terrorists (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion or propaganda is primarily sought ( Badey, 1998:91).

   One can see how ridiculous the effort to define terrorism has become. If it were not enough that we can not agree on the components of terrorism- that is, what terrorism is essentially comprised of- our prospects are even worse when it comes to agreeing on what terrorism essentially is. For instance, Kruglanski and Fishman (2006:193, 201-2) reason that terrorism “is a behavioral phenomenon governed by human agency. Individuals must decide to execute a terrorist act and be motivated enough to perpetrate the carnage, often to the point of taking their own lives in the process.” Kruglanski and Fishman distinguish between terrorism as a syndrome and terrorism as a tool. The syndrome label implies that terrorists can somehow be separately identified from non-terrorists with some type of psychological profile or diagnosis. It views the increase in terrorism as a sort of epidemic. Yet, despite many efforts to profile terrorists, no truly unique terrorist personality has been uncovered, nor has any distinct cause of terrorism or “terrorism virus” been identified. Finally, as we’ve already discussed, attempts to define terrorism, and separate it from larger acts of war, are problematic to say the least.
   Kruglanski and Fishman argue that labeling terrorism as a tool, on the other hand, allows experts to study terrorism in all its variety without having to connect all the dots as to the causes of terrorism or the unique psychological profile of terrorists. It eliminates the search for a single cause, and allows for the focus to be rather on countering the strategy of terrorism. This view of terrorism as a tool is expressed succinctly by Caleb Carr who states that terrorism “is simply the contemporary name given to the modern permutation of warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying their will to support either leaders or policies that the agents of such violence find objectionable.”
   Likewise, Andrew Silke (1996:12) insists that “many of the so-called distinctions between terrorism and warfare are illusionary.” In fact, the sole distinction that Silke offers terrorism is that “despite having been recognized as a phenomenon for several decades, there still remains enormous ambiguity over just what ‘terrorism’ actually is.” Silke insists that terrorist tactics “are merely a subset within the larger domain of guerrilla tactics.” When resources are in short supply, or when the fight is acutely asymmetrical, terrorism becomes the only means available.
   Peter Bergen (2006:23) also suggests that “terrorism is a cheap form of warfare.” He reminds us that “the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, for instance, only cost a few thousand dollars.” Bergen illustrates just how inexpensive terrorism becomes when you have “a cadre of young men willing to engage in suicidal terrorism.” Official court documents of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial indicated that the 9/11 attacks cost roughly $200,000, “a trivial sum considering the damage it inflicted.” Bergen further argues that “no amount of money will buy you 19 young men willing to commit suicide in a terrorist operation.”
   Navad Morag (2006:120) categorizes terrorism in a “far feebler class of violent acts than war, both in terms of the number of casualties that it produces and in terms of the social and economic impact that it has.” Morag supports his argument with a single comparison. American suffered 1.08 million casualties in World War II, 407,316 of which were deaths. He then compares WWII, the single largest war of the twentieth century, to the single largest terrorist attack, the September 11, 2001 attack. 9/11 resulted in 3,031 deaths. From an economic standpoint, WWII cost the US roughly $15,655 billion (1990 dollars), while 9/11 has cost the US somewhere around the $27.2 billion mark in direct losses and upwards of $500 billion in indirect losses (lost income, increased insurance premiums, increased defense budgets…). While neither figures factor various offsets to these costs, such as increased employment…etc, they give a rough comparison. Yet, even with the huge financial losses incurred because of terrorism, Stephen Walt (2002:64) argues that terrorism has not significantly impacted the United States’ “material position…The United States is still the leading economic and military power in the world.”
   We can begin to see more clearly, that the abundant attempts to define terrorism, and to clarify what it is, are without any real success. Yet with countless definitions to choose from, many continue to construct their own. I will not. I’m partial to Winkates’ definition (2006:88-9): “the premeditated threat or use of violence against persons or property, designed to intimidate noncombatant victims, the object of which is to change or to stabilize private or public policy.” The reason that I like this definition is that it’s simple and precise. Whatever definition one chooses, “the telling distinction between terrorism and other kinds of crime is that the terrorist target… differs from the victim (person attacked), while target and victim are one and the same in common crime.” I adapt this definition somewhat. The definition of terrorism that I will use from this time forth is as follows:
   (M ≠ PG) (TA ≠ V)

   Where motive (M) does not equal personal gain (PG), that is, profit, revenge, gratification, or any other personal motive for action; and the target audience (TA) does not equal the actual victims (V); terrorism can be distinguished from other crime(s). As I stated early on, defining terrorism is not as important as countering it. But defining terrorism is important, for without a uniform definition of terrorism, we cannot determine how best to counter it. However one defines it, however, there is no doubt that terrorism defines the contemporary age.
   Jessica Stern (1999:6) reveals that while terrorist attacks took 4,798 lives in the ten years between 1970 and 1979, that number rose to 51,797 lives between 1990 and 1996. In 2005 alone, there were a total of 11, 111 terrorist attacks (Desouza & Hensgen, 2007). Eighty percent of all suicide attacks since 1968 occurred after September 11, 2001. Furthermore, 2004 saw more suicide attacks than any other year, and 2005 continued the growing trend with more than one suicide attack per day on average in Iraq alone. The US State Department issued a report in May 2007 revealing that terrorist attacks in 2006 increased by more than 25% over 2005, with fatalities increasing some 40 percent. (Whitelaw, 2007:33). Also, web sites with Islamist postings have vastly multiplied from less than 20 in 2001 to over 3,000 in 2006 (Atran, 2006). Just imagine if the death toll due to terrorism were to continue to increase as it has been: more than tenfold every two decades. Countering terrorism is obviously of the highest priority for every society. As we will soon discover, however, there is wide disagreement on what causes terrorism. Let’s look at some of the theories on the causes of terrorism.

   What Causes Terrorism?

   “We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror.”
   -President George W. Bush, Monterrey, CA, March 22, 2002
   (Reprinted in Azam and Delacroix, 2006:330).

   President Bush’s correlation between poverty and terror was criticized based on the data suggesting many terrorist organizations, Hezbollah included, recruit members from the more wealthy and educated in society. Given this potential connection between wealth, education and terrorism, some argue that aid could actually increase terrorism by increasing the pool of financially secure, educated recruits (Azam and Delacroix, 2006:330).
   James Piazza (2006:159-60, 170-1) finds “no significant relationship between any of the measures of economic development and terrorism.” Rather, Piazza argues that social cleavage theory is “better equipped to explain terrorism than are theories that link terrorism to poor development.” Piazza’s argument is based on the fact that of the “top ten countries in the world where terrorist attacks for the period 1986-2002 took place,” only three had low per capita gross domestic products (Yemen, Angola, and Pakistan), four had medium (India, Colombia, Turkey, and Peru), and three had high per capita gross domestic products (Greece, Israel/Palestine, and France). Contrary to what Piazza calls the “rooted-in-poverty hypothesis,” which argues that poor economic development (measured by per capita income, literacy, life expectancy, distribution of wealth, growth of GDP, stable prices, employment opportunities, and food security), the social cleavage theory posits that the greater the “socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, or regional divisions,” the weaker the party systems tend to be (due to the likelihood that there will be more of them). Since “the number of (significant) political parties that win votes, make up national legislatures, and form governments is inversely related to the ‘strength’ and stability of party systems,” social cleavage theory reasons that societies that suffer from weak and fractured party systems are more susceptible to terrorist organizations.
   Jessica Stern (2004:1119) also comments on this: “Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders.”
   Others, such as Kurrild-Klitgaard et. al. (2006) deny that there is any relationship between poverty and terrorism at all. Six months later President Bush offered a somewhat more qualified position on the connection between aid and terrorism. In an op-ed article published in the New York Times on September 11, 2002, the President, seemingly responding to this criticism, wrote:
   “Poverty does not transform poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet, Poverty, corruption and repression are a toxic combination in many societies, leading to weak governments that are unable to enforce order or patrol their borders and are vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels.” (Reprinted in Azam and Delacroix, 2006:330).
   This latter statement connects terrorism, not with poverty per se, but rather with the inability of governments weakened by “poverty, corruption and repression.” While repression, in and of itself, may or may not have any connection to poverty or to corruption, Krueger and Laitin, (2003), and Krueger and Maleckova (2003) have identified repressive governments as “typical of source countries.” They conclude that “civil liberties have a negative impact” on terrorism “thus providing some support to George Bush’s view” (Azam and Delacroix 2006, p. 330-1).
   Kurrild-Klitgaard, Justesen & Klemmensen (2006) find that increased political rights and civil liberties within a given country correspond to a decrease in the generation of terrorists from that country. However, while increased political rights also correspond to a decrease in the occurrence of terrorism within a given country, increased civil liberties do not. The authors conclude that neither the generation of terrorists, nor the occurrence of terrorism is related to inequality, poor economic growth, poverty, or low education. Furthermore, the author’s find that while a fractured society may contribute to terrorism, religion itself has very little relationship with terrorism.
   Enders & Sandler (2006) conducted a study to determine whether there were indications of either an income-based or a geographical transfer of transnational terrorist attacks due to the rise of fundamental terrorism, the end of the Cold War and 9/11. And while their study of counterterrorism measures in countries with the top 31 per capita gross national incomes (GNI) between 1968-2003 reveal no indication that income-based transfer is occurring across the board (e.g. terrorist attacks are moving away from wealthy countries to poor countries), U.S. counterterrorism efforts have seemingly deterred terrorist attacks against American targets to countries with less security in place. With approximately 3,000 deaths and more than $80 billion in damage, 9/11 stands out as the most devastating terrorist attack so far. This, of course, leads to apprehension that the next attack against the continental United States will be even greater in magnitude. And while government officials are beginning to acknowledge that there are no guaranteed defenses against terrorism, no administration can idly sit by and wait for the next terrorist attack to occur.
   With no uniform definition of terrorism, and no agreement on what causes it, policymakers and security professionals are still charged with the task of countering terrorism. But how does a nation, or a planet for that matter, counter terrorism? As we will soon discover, this too is a matter of intense controversy.

   How to Counter Terrorism?

   Stripped of rhetoric, however, a war against terrorism must mean a war against political groups who choose terror as a tactic. American global primacy is one of the causes of this war. It animates both the terrorists’ purposes and their choice of tactics. To groups like al Qaeda, the United States is the enemy because American military power dominates their world, supports corrupt governments in their countries, and backs Israelis against Muslims; American cultural power insults their religion and pollutes their societies; and American economic power makes all these intrusions and desecrations possible (Betts, 2006:387).

   What this ultimately comes down to, is that terrorism is not an ideology, but a tactic. Its continued use relies less on what causes terrorism, and more on what allows it to continue to be used. This is an important inquiry as it directly relates to my theory that terrorism, regardless of its causes, is ultimately possible only with sufficient popular support. Consequently, only once we find a way to eliminate popular support for terrorism will we be able to eliminate terrorism itself. Measuring popular support for terrorism also affords us a method of measuring and predicting the potential for terrorism in any given society, the direction acts of terrorism tend to be moving in (e.g. westward, eastward, or remaining static), and trends in terrorism, such as whether support is increasing among moderates, or among Westerners…etc.
   Terrorism is perhaps the greatest challenge facing mankind in the twenty-first century. It has been researched, debated, analyzed and contemplated by some of the greatest minds on the planet. And yet no known solution exists; no agreed upon procedure is in place to stop terrorism. In my research of terrorism, I have discovered that there is no uniform definition of terrorism, nor is there any general agreement on the causes of terrorism, nor is there any one accepted method of collecting data on individual acts of terrorism. Interestingly enough however, with very few exceptions, nearly all scholars, journalists and security professionals alike agree that counter-terrorists measures require a great deal of diplomacy. I have concluded that, while some minimal definition is necessary to identify terrorism in a uniform manner, knowing what causes terrorism and collecting data on individual acts of terrorism is not as important as knowing how to stop it. When putting out a fire, while it is important to know what type of fire it is before attempting to put it out (applying water to an oil fire will have the same effect as using a flame thrower), firefighters understand that the key to putting out any fire is to remove its source of oxygen. This knowledge affords them a standard plan of action that varies only in detail (what kind of fire is it, and what is needed to remove the source of oxygen).
   Likewise, terrorism depends on popular support to sustain itself. Without popular support, the majority of funding, recruits and overall acceptance will disappear. Therefore, similar to putting out a fire, the primary goal for eliminating terrorism is to eliminate the sources of popular support. This has to be our standard approach and strategy. The specific details as to how to eliminate popular support for terrorism will vary from situation to situation depending on the type of terrorism, and what is causing it; but we now have a standard solution. This standard solution will require a variety of diplomatic m