Today's David Miliband Non-Story

The media is all excited over a Labour minister disparaging the term "war on terror" and saying things like "this isn't us against one organised enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives" and "What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others, without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

Except the example above is not drawn from David Miliband's Op-Ed piece in today's Guardian that the paper highlighted on page 1 and which the BBC repeatedly reported on. Instead, it is from a speech that then International Development Secretary Hilary Benn gave in New York City in April 2007 that both the BBC and the Guardian reported on extensively. 

Oh, the short term memory of the media.

Comments

[Dave]

I think his biggest mistake is his attempt at divorcing terror from ideology. What does he think motivates these terror cells. Of course it is religious. Of course it is an ideological struggle. Bin Laden has openly stated his goal for the West is conversion to Islam.

[Ian]

But ideology is this instance is an expression of more than just religious fanaticism, though there is a good deal of that no doubt. It also reflects a host of aspirations, frustrated ambitions, anger at Western neo-colonialism, deprivations of various kinds, amongst others.

[Mike Dunn]

But he's also stated a number of non-religious goals- for the US to leave Saudi Arabia, Israel to leave Palestine, ending sanctions against Iraq etc. I think it's comforting to simply blame religion, but wrong.

Plus let's not forget bin Laden was never the be all and end all of the 'war on terror' anyway.

[Dave]

But that was why Iraq didn't fit with the war on the terror. Saddam and bin-Laden were at ideologically opposite poles. Bin-Laden is closer to the likes of the Taliban. I don't think Saddam ever trusted bin-Laden.

I'm not blaming religion. It is al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups that adopt these religious ideologies and use them to pursue their geo-political goals. -- i.e. overthrow of secular socialist Arab regimes and establishment of a grand caliphate in the Middle East. I discussed this with a German professor who teaches at the University of London. I can't remember his name, but I'll find it. He has visited ACS at least once. He's an expert on war studies and terrorism.

[Canuckistan]

but Miliband's point (and Hilary Benn two years ago) that you can't lump groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda together.

It's more complicated than simply being about religion--there's also a liberationist ideology among some groups (Hamas, Hezbollah, various Pakistani groups fired up over Kashmir) who are also affected by religion.

[Dave]

But they use religion as a banner for liberation...just as liberation movements in Asia used communism in the last century.

[Dave]

"Islamist fundamentalists may not be organised or unified in a conventional sense, but they have a unifying creed, jihadism: they are waging a holy war and they must be resisted."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4249466/David-Miliband-is-wrong-on-the-war-on-terror.html

[Mo]

Islamic ideology as I know it is anti-colonial, anti-racist, and supportive of the oppressed and jihad works within that framework. Resistance against Zionism, racism, and apartheid is a jihad. Even speaking out against the crimes being carried out by the Israeli regime (like that of the former South African regime) is a jihad and it is something to be proud of.

On the other hand, Bin-Laden, Saddam, and the Taliban have all either been created or have had extensive backing from morally bankrupt western regimes at one point or another. Saddam was a secular despot, while the Taliban and al-Qaeda get their ideas from the once obscure and now the official Saudi ideology Wahhabism and as we all know Saudi Arabia is a western backed despotic regime.