by Altaf Khan

Created on: February 27, 2010   Last Updated: February 28, 2010

Mission for mission, international terrorism has become the most efficient instrument of modern warfare. It fulfills every military commander's definition of effectiveness, damages enemies in there own countries or wherever found, costs little, uses minimum armed forces, causes almost no casulalties in the field and none at all to its bases, supply lines, economy or leadership.

What has enabled terrorism to become so powerful and pervasive as a method of war? The answer is plain and shameful; the passivity, indecision and suicidal moral attitudes of its target prey - the democracies of the west.

In Libya are two men, Abdel  Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, accused by the United States of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland on December 21, 1988 - an act of mass murder that killed 270 men, women and children, including 188 Americans. In Tripoli, Libya’s capital, dictator Muammer Qaddafi defies the demands of America and its allies to turn the two men over for trial.

The United States takes no steps to punish the Libyan security detachments that guard these men or armed forces that help the dictator defy the world. All the while Libya gets supplies from America’s allies - openly as well as surreptitiously.

Companies in Germany, France, Italy and Japan have supplied Libya with goods that can be used in warfare or the manufacture of weapons. They have even delivered components that are helping Libya build the world’s largest underground chemical weapons plant.        

President Bill Clinton once visited Syria’s President Hafiz al-Asad, supposedly to coax the Syrian dictator into doing something he has refused to do; make full peace with Israel. Warren Chiristopher made at least 18 fruitless visits to Assad - a record that is laughable worldwide among diplomats - before he resigned as Secretary of State last November.

The sands of the desert are littered with the reputations of Western diplomats who thought they could coax Assad into doing anything at all, except under his own conditions.

Not far from Damascus are terrorist camps; among the largest such collection anywhere, they are protected by Syrian intelligence. It was from these camps, U.S. intelligence once said, that the bombers of Pan Am 103 set out, using Iranian money and support and Libyan helpers.

Then President George Bush met with Assad which of course increased the Syrian’s clout. Afterward Bush said that Syria had received a “bum rap”.

International terrorism is not a matter of lone bombers or isolated killer squads. It is a new form of organized guerrilla warfare with world reach. Terrorists realize that sudden deadly strikes at civilians in far places serve to magnify the importance and power of the guerrilla.

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