Title

Effective Counter-Terrorism: Sound Foreign Policy, Intelligence Gathering, Policing, Social Engineering and Necessary Use of Force

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

The UN Charter was founded on the bold vision of the attainment of a world without violence. It is only be addressing the conditions that give rise to terrorism that such violence can be quelled. These conditions may be complex. So it is with terrorism waged by radical Islamists. The Islamic faith as understood by the majority of the world's Muslims is not a source of terrorism. However Islamic ideologies that promote violence are. Islamist ideologies often focus upon past and present injustice against Muslims, and actual or perceived oppression of Muslim communities and societies. Human rights violations against Muslims in Palestine and Iraq provide fertile ground for the expression of such ideas. The danger arises where religious instruction draws upon these conditions to instill doctrines of hatred, violence, and ethnic or religious intolerance. Where Muslims are taught that they have a religious duty to fight oppression, injustice and humiliation by killing civilians living under the pagan or apostate governments blamed for these humiliations. Islamist terror is virtually inevitable. In this sense the 'war on terror' will be decided as much by curriculum content in the maddrasses of Pakistan and the Islamic schools in the West, as it will be by diplomatic negotiation in Jerusalem and Geneva. It will certainly not be won or lost on a conventional military battlefield.

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Due to copyright restrictions this chapter is unavailable for download.

Staff and Students of the University of Notre Dame Australia may access the full text of Responding to Terrorism: Political, Philosophical and Legal Perspectives and this chapter here

Responding to Terrorism: Political, Philosophical and Legal Perspectives may be accessed from the National Library of Australia here


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