WHEN THE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM IS A SOCIETY

Since 9-11 the debate over American strategy in fighting the War on Terror has revolved around the unresolved question of whether the primary threat of terrorism comes from Rogue states like Iraq and Iran or from non-state actors like al Qaida and Islamic Jihad.

Some voices, often neoconservative ones, point to state sponsored terrorism as the ultimate question to resolve and suggest that even al Qaida relies to some extent on states like Syria and Iran providing support or turning a blind eye to terrorists passing through their territory. This view has deeply influenced the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war, being one reason for the invasion of Iraq and the continuing American pressure on the neighboring states of Iran and Syria. These two states have, like Iraq, long been in the business of sponsoring various terror groups, notably Lebanon’s Hezbollah based in the Bekaa valley but also including various PLO factions.

The other view, often promoted by critics of the Iraq invasion, favor the non-state actor explanation that Osama bin Laden is a ” super-empowered individual “ with the technological means and the ideological motives to usurp the sovereign prerogative of a state to wage war. Advocates of this paradigm are split as to whether groups like al Qaida require a military solution or should be left primarily to intelligence agencies and law enforcement personnel to deal with but they tend to be united in the view that invading Iraq was a terrible mistake.

Of course, the possibility that these two types of terrorism bleed over in to one another is usually ignored for the sake of rhetorical clarity or is dismissed because one form of terror is presumed to be dominant. There is however another form of terrorism that has become evident in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan since 9/11 but has been seldom identified as distinct – ” Socially Sponsored Terrorism “ – when a society or at least a politically significant portion of one rather than the state itself becomes the motive force for supporting acts of terrorism. The state in turn is either unable or unwilling to bring the supporters of terror to heel but attempts to keep a lid on their most flagrant actions for appearances sake or for quid pro quo favors from states victimized by terrorists.

Socially Sponsored Terrorism represents a manifold problem for the United States Government which is why it has not been concretely acknowledged as a separate category of terror. Ominously, it suggests that the terrorist group, in this case al Qaida, is evolving into something more dangerous than a highly compartmentalized organization of terrorist cells- a true insurgency backed by a widespread political-ideological movement.

Except for being transnational, Socially Sponsored Terrorism begins to mirror in form and capabilities the older ideological guerilla movements like the Vietminh of Indochina, the Tamil Tigers and Sendero Luminoso, all of which rest or rested on a base of civilian support. It’s a much bigger problem than quashing the Red Brigades and suggests the need for large-scale counterinsurgency operations not conventional occupation or law enforcement counter-terrorism task forces.

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