Act of war: terrorism in the Clash of Civilizations.

• Author: Howell, Llewellyn D.
• Position: World Watcher - Brief Article

WE WILL NEVER WIN the war on terrorism until we get the context right. We need to understand fully that this phenomenon is a very clear part of the "Clash of Civilizations," which is now manifesting itself as a war between cultures, and that Israel and Palestine are at the center of that war. It is particularly important to understand that, whether or not we want it to be, this is a clash between Islam and the West, and both sides are pursuing this conflict employing a basic cultural concept--that God is on "our" side.

We have to be able to rethink the conduct of and solution to terrorism with these premises. Terrorism's challenge has unbalanced the conduct of foreign policy by the U.S. and has created political and cultural turmoil that may have profound effects on the course of human history. This is especially so if the U.S. continues to pursue terrorism as if it were behavior isolated from the social environment of a quarter of the world's countries.

A war against "evil"

Pres. Bush launched his "war on terrorism" as if terrorism were a malignant tumor that could be surgically removed from the body of humanity. While American foreign policy since Sept. 11 has pursued terrorism with a scalpel, the Bush Administration has railed against terrorism as an "evil." If we are waging a war against evil, the war is against motive and intent, not against soldiers and physical assets. Forget the surgeon; what we need is an exorcist.

While arguing that the current conflict is one with a radical subgroup and not with Islam, the President, with his "axis of evil" analogy, nevertheless calls upon conservative Judeo-Christian sensitivities to rally the nation (and a few others) behind his cause. The inclusion of the concept of evil incorporates religion, underpinning the notion that this is a clash of cultures and that ultimately this is a war between civilizations--Judeo-Christian vs. Islam.

The Clash of Civilizations, as described by Harvard University's Samuel Huntington, is not necessarily war. It can be just intense competition. However, when pushed to its most-competitive stage, where one civilization tries to physically eliminate the other, it is war, and war is fought like, well, war! The object is to destroy the other side.

We seem to have forgotten how war has been fought over the millennia of human existence. It hasn't been the antiseptic TV-guided missiles of Kosovo and Serbia or the finely dressed rows of kneeling musketeers of Napoleon's...