Where is the global fight against terrorism? — Written on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11
Xinhua News Agency reporters Zhao Zhuoyun, Liu Zan, and Song Ying
On the morning of September 11, 2001, two passenger planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into two buildings of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, United States, causing a violent explosion. Flames roared, smoke billowed out, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, and innocent lives disappeared.
After 9/11, the "war on terror" launched by the United States and its allies failed to eliminate terrorists, but instead plunged a series of countries into turmoil, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, fleeing tens of millions of people, and wiping out trillions of dollars of wealth.
Where is the global fight against terrorism?
In his speech at the 75th Anniversary Summit of the United Nations in September last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out that mankind has entered a new era of interconnection, with the interests of all countries closely related and their destinies closely linked. Global threats and challenges require a strong global response.
Only by adhering to the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, abandoning hegemonism and double standards, truly practicing multilateralism, strengthening international counter-terrorism cooperation, and taking multiple measures at the same time can we treat both the symptoms and the root causes and fundamentally curb the threat of terrorism.
The Pain of Terrorism: Killing Human Enemies
On May 8 this year, Fatima, a girl living in Kabul, Afghanistan, suffered a nightmare. Terrorists detonated bombs at the school gate while students were out of school, killing and injuring more than 200 people. "As soon as everyone walked out of the school, the bomb exploded, and some of the students were blown away. I was blown unconscious. ”
Terrorist activities in the modern sense began to emerge in the 1960s and 1970s, and since the 1990s the scale and number have expanded and increased significantly. In 2001, the events of 9/11 marked the beginning of an unprecedented period of international terrorism.
In October 2002, two nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia, were attacked at the same time, killing more than 200 people; in September 2004, hostage-taking at the No. 1 Secondary School in Beslan, Republic of North Ossetia, Russia, killed more than 330 people; in August 2007, a series of explosions in Iraq's Nineveh province killed at least 500 people...
As countries strengthen their counter-terrorism efforts, some of the old terrorist organizations represented by al-Qaida have been attacked and their activity has decreased. However, in war-torn areas such as Iraq and Syria, terrorists from all over the world continue to assemble to form new terrorist forces, the most representative of which is the "Islamic State". The extremist group has carried out terrorist attacks around the world, such as the Series of Terrorist Attacks in Paris, France in November 2015, the Bombing of Military Barracks in Libya in January 2016, and the Airport and Metro Station Bombings at Brussels, Belgium, in March of the same year.
All kinds of demagogic extremist ideas continue to spread through the Internet, and a number of extremists have been spawned in many parts of the world, triggering a series of "lone wolf" terrorist attacks, such as the July 2011 bombing of Oslo, Norway, the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, and the 2019 Christchurch Mosque in New Zealand.
In his speech at the G20 Summit Leaders' Symposium in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017, President Xi Jinping stressed that in recent years, the international community has increased counter-terrorism cooperation and the spread of terrorist organizations has been curbed, but the cancer of terrorism has not been eradicated.
Like many other countries, China is a victim of terrorism. From the 1990s to 2016, the "three forces" at home and abroad planned and organized thousands of violent terrorist cases or incidents in Xinjiang, resulting in the murder of a large number of innocent people and incalculable property damage. Since July, two bombings in Pakistan have killed and injured many people, including Chinese citizens.
Liu Yunfeng, deputy director of China's National Counter-Terrorism Office and director of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, said in July that the risk of individual domestic personnel carrying out sabotage activities instigated by terrorist forces outside the country cannot be completely ruled out. In particular, the "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" terrorist activity organization uses the Internet outside the country to publish violent terrorist audio and video, publicize terrorist ideas, teach weapons use and explosives production technology, and constantly send trainees to infiltrate Into China to plan and carry out terrorist activities. Affected by the security situation in some countries and regions, the terrorist threats faced by China's overseas institutions and personnel have increased.
The Dilemma of the "Anti-Terrorism" War: Countering Violence with Violence, the More You Fight Against Terror
The benefits are greater than the cures, and the harm is greater than the chaos. There are complex and profound reasons for the emergence of terrorism at the political, economic, social and cultural levels, and the interference of hegemonic countries in the affairs of other countries and the destruction of the international order are undoubtedly one of the key factors.
After the end of the Cold War, the United States has gone farther and farther down the road of hegemonism, often wantonly interfering in the affairs of other countries, fostering a number of armed organizations, intensifying contradictions in some countries and regions, objectively contributing to the spread of extremist ideas and the growth of extremist organizations, and itself has become the target of terrorist attacks. After the "9/11" incident, the United States and its allies launched a number of wars in the name of "counter-terrorism", although to a certain extent to crack down on terrorist activities, due to too much self-interest, but also undermined the stability of some countries and regions, so that many people fell into the predicament of survival, but for the breeding of extremist forces and terrorism to create more space.
In Iraq, the U.S. war is estimated to have killed between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians, and al-Qaida has taken the opportunity to establish a branch there. In 2011, a civil war broke out in Syria, and the support of the United States and other countries for Syrian rebels made the war more and more intense. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaida joined forces with some Syrian rebels to form the extremist organization "Islamic State", and then continued to attack the city in Syria and Iraq. Although the Islamic State eventually lost most of its control under the joint efforts of all parties, there are still many remnants of forces scattered in many countries.
Anurada Chenoi, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, pointed out in 2014 when the Islamic State was gaining momentum: "The war on terror has not worked, the countries in which the United States intervened have neither been protected nor stabilized, and people have not been 'liberated'." ”
His views are now being proven once again in Afghanistan. Just as U.S. troops were in a hurry to withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of August, the Islamic State launched an explosion attack on Kabul airport, killing at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American servicemen. But it was soon pointed out that the shooting of the U.S. military after the explosion was the cause of many casualties. A few days later, the U.S. military carried out an airstrike on a car in Kabul on the pretext of "eliminating the terrorist threat," but local resident Moussavo said it was neighbor Zamarai and several children, none of whom were terrorists, who were killed.
Violence is easy to be violent, and I don't know what it is. For 20 years, such a vicious circle has been staged in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places. It is precisely the hegemonic acts of the United States that provide a "reason" for terrorist organizations to commit evil, so that extremist ideas continue to spread and terrorist activities are difficult to prohibit.
As President Xi Jinping pointed out in his keynote address at the Fourth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in May 2014, security should be universal. We cannot have one national security and other countries are not safe, some countries are not safe while other countries are not, and still less can we sacrifice the security of other countries to seek our own so-called absolute security.
Holding the salary to fight the fire, the salary is not exhausted, the fire is not extinguished. History proves that war alone cannot eliminate violence, because force is not the fundamental way to solve the problem; and "counter-terrorism" that practices hegemonism cannot eliminate terrorism, because terrorism itself is a mirror image of hegemonism - the same self-centeredness and the same unscrupulous means.
China's counter-terrorism practice proves that it is necessary to take multiple measures at the same time, not only severely punish terrorists, but also promote economic development, and do our best to solve problems such as people's livelihood education. Judging from the situation in Xinjiang, there have been no violent terrorist incidents in the local area for more than 4 consecutive years, and the people's safety and production and life have been fully guaranteed.
The Evil of American "Counter-Terrorism": Impure Motives, Double Standards
At midnight on August 30, 2021, the last U.S. plane disappeared over Kabul airport.
In the view of former German Foreign Minister Fischer, apart from killing a few terrorist leaders and weakening individual extremist groups, the 20-year war in Afghanistan has yielded almost no results. "Terrorism has not been defeated militarily or ideologically, and remains a consistent threat to the West."
Over the past 20 years, the problem of American-style counter-terrorism has always been unresolved, and the reason for this is that, in addition to the wrong choice of the path of countering violence with violence, it is also because its motives are not pure, and it has not really focused its energy on combating terrorism, but has tried to seek its own selfish interests in the name of "counter-terrorism".
The first is to use military action to consolidate the hegemonic position of the United States. Andrew Bačević, an emeritus professor at Boston University in the United States, pointed out that the victory in the Cold War and the Gulf War made Americans think that "they are a special existence and a war master", and the strength of the United States is reflected in its ability to efficiently solve all problems with military strength, but the "9/11" incident shook people's confidence in the United States. The Bush Administration is anxious to consolidate the hegemonic position of the United States, and "for this reason, they believe that there is only one way to achieve military victory as soon as possible."
The second is to export "American-style democracy" to highlight the "superiority" of the United States. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States proposed the so-called "Greater Middle East Democracy Plan" in an attempt to build Iraq into a "model of democracy" to promote political change in other Middle Eastern countries. In Afghanistan, the United States has also made no secret of its purpose of exporting "American-style democracy." But Patrick Cronin, an expert at the Hudson Institute in the United States, believes that attempts to transform Afghanistan into "the likeness of the United States" are futile. In an article, he quoted Michelle Flaunoi, a former deputy secretary of defense, as saying: "The United States and its allies got it wrong from the start. The standards we have set are based on our democratic ideals, not on what is sustainable or viable in the Afghan environment. ”
The third is to channel benefits for U.S. arms dealers. Arms dealers are the backbone of U.S. military power and the financiers of U.S. politicians. According to a research project at Brown University in the United States, all U.S. military operations after 9/11 cost a total of about $6.4 trillion, most of which fell into the pockets of five U.S. munitions giants such as Lockheed Martin.
Many times, the United States has shown obvious contradictions and double standards when it comes to counterterrorism. Taking the Islamic State as an example, David Hendrickson, a professor of political science at Colorado College in the United States, said washington was worried after the rapid rise of the extremist group. However, on the issue of the Syrian civil war, the United States actively organized allies to support the Syrian rebels, "and what it did directly caused the region to fall into anarchy and allowed terrible organizations such as the Islamic State to develop."
Terrorism is the common enemy of mankind, and the double-standard act seriously undermines international counter-terrorism cooperation and, to a certain extent, even becomes a victimizer.
In an important speech delivered at the headquarters of the League of Arab States in Cairo, Egypt, in January 2016, President Xi Jinping pointed out that to combat terrorism and extremist forces, consensus is needed. Terrorism knows no borders, nor is there a good or bad distinction, and there can be no double standards in counter-terrorism.
Australian Citizen Party publication Australian Warning Service published eight special reports earlier this year detailing the support of separatist and terrorist activities in Xinjiang by the United States and other Western countries for geopolitical purposes.
Uvo Behrens, a well-known German writer who has lived in China for 27 years, said: "The US government has actually removed the 'East Turkestan Islamic Movement' from the terrorist list for committing numerous crimes in order to use terrorism to plague China's Xinjiang, and this clumsy trick has been ridiculed by the world in Iraq and Afghanistan." ”
The Global Path to Counter-Terrorism: Strengthening Cooperation to Address both the Symptoms and the Root Causes
On the 3rd of this month, a knife murder occurred in a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, causing 6 people to be injured. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was a "lone wolf" terrorist attack on civilians. The perpetrators, who came to New Zealand from Sri Lanka in 2011, were influenced by the extremist ideas of the Islamic State.
This incident proves once again that if the root causes of terrorism are not cut off, terrorist organizations and extremist forces will reappear in other parts of the world, even if terrorist organizations and extremist forces are suppressed in Places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
Where is the global fight against terrorism?
The Los Angeles Times commented that one of the most important lessons of the "global war on terror" in the United States is that it is difficult for the United States to rely solely on military force to achieve all its goals. Addressing violent extremism requires diplomatic efforts, a need to promote national development, and to strengthen education.
In essence, terrorism is the distorted product of the intertwining and intensification of various contradictions in human society. Therefore, neither a single country nor a single means can fundamentally eliminate this tumor.
In recent years, more and more countries have realized that only by cohesive efforts and deepening international cooperation can we win a real victory in counter-terrorism. For example, Southeast Asian countries have established a series of counter-terrorism cooperation mechanisms within the framework of ASEAN, including the Establishment of the Southeast Asian Counter-Terrorism Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which aims to analyze terrorist activities and train counter-terrorism personnel. In November 2020, the BRICS Leaders' Meeting endorsed the BRICS Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which aims to enrich and strengthen BRICS cooperation and make a substantive contribution to global prevention and combating of the threat of terrorism.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in particular, has embarked on a fruitful path of security cooperation. From the establishment of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, to the holding of a series of joint anti-terrorism exercises such as the "Peace Mission", to the cooperation in combating drug smuggling, transnational crime, illegal immigration, border defense and other fields, the cooperation capacity of the SCO member states has gradually improved, the scope of security cooperation has been continuously expanded, and regional peace and stability have been effectively maintained.
In an interview with Russian media in July 2017, President Xi Jinping pointed out that in carrying out international cooperation on counter-terrorism, one is to abandon "double standards", give full play to the leading role of the United Nations in the international fight against terrorism, and be committed to forming a joint force; second, it is necessary to properly solve regional hotspot issues, help Syria and other Middle Eastern countries restore stability as soon as possible, and curb the rampant spread of terrorism; third, we must focus on the long term, comprehensively implement policies, treat both symptoms and root causes, and take multiple measures such as politics, economy and culture. Eradicate the breeding grounds of terrorism at its source.
Xinjiang is undoubtedly a successful example in addressing the root causes of terrorism. According to Xiao Kaiti Yiming, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region People's Congress, in recent years, Xinjiang has adhered to the principle of "grasping crackdowns with one hand and prevention with the other", and has rescued to the greatest extent those who have violated the law or committed crimes of terrorism or extremism and eliminated the soil and conditions that breed terrorism and religious extremism to the greatest extent by focusing on improving people's livelihood, strengthening publicity and education on the rule of law, and setting up vocational skills education and training centers in accordance with the law to help and educate. The basic rights of the people of all ethnic groups have been guaranteed to the greatest extent possible from terrorism and religious extremism. At present, there have been no violent terrorist cases in Xinjiang for more than 4 consecutive years, realizing the aspirations and hopes of the people of all ethnic groups for peace and stability.
Whatever is done by the accumulation of strength, there is nothing invincible, and what the wisdom of the multitude does is nothing that cannot be accomplished. Only by adhering to the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, abandoning hegemonism and double standards, truly practicing multilateralism, strengthening international counter-terrorism cooperation, and comprehensively implementing measures to treat both the symptoms and the root causes can the international community dispel the haze of extremist ideas, eliminate the threat of terrorism, and create a more secure and beautiful future.
(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 11)