Terrorists don’t listen to reason

MICK Malthouse and the Collingwood and Brisbane Lions football clubs should be applauded, and not criticised as Phil Cleary (Herald Sun, July 12) seems to think, for their very human, caring response to the inexcusable acts of terror in London and across the world.

Terrorists are the enemy of all humankind.

They attack Red Cross personnel, civilians on trains and buses, skyscrapers, nightclubs, diplomats, schoolchildren, hostages, care workers, UN workers, or just this week children in Baghdad being given sweets by US soldiers.

Nobody is immune.

However, true to form, Mr Cleary criticised Malthouse, saying he should have organised a protest against the invasion of Iraq.

The Lancet statement that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by the coalition forces has been shown to be quite false. The UN estimates this figure to be 25,000, most of whom are the victims of the jihadists, not the coalition forces.

Mr Cleary of course failed to mention the good news in Iraq and Afghanistan, where almost 20 million people have been able to vote in the first free elections in the history of either country.

He doesn't mention the emancipation of women in Afghanistan from the feudal despotism of the Taliban. He doesn't mention that in most of Iraq -- the Kurdish north and the Shia south -- the situation is generally quiet and great progress has been made.

It is only a minority of the Sunni minority, aided by foreign jihadists, who can't accept a democratic Iraq. Although there were divisions in Australia about our sending troops to Iraq, almost everybody (except the far Left) agrees that we need to remain there until the Iraqi defence forces are sufficiently trained and equipped to take over from the coalition forces.

Withdrawal would simply give in to the terrorists and produce still more knock-on effects. Mr Cleary's comments on Winston Churchill really are over the top. Churchill's finest hour was in leading the war against the Nazis, and succeeding against great odds, ensuring that democracy and freedom survived.

Churchill also understood that giving in to dictators -- or terrorists -- only makes them more greedy. He described appeasement as "throwing your friends to the crocodiles in the hope that they will eat you last".

Does Mr Cleary seriously think that the terrorists bombed New York, Madrid or London because of Iraq or Palestine? He should recall that September 11 took place before the coalition actions in either Afghanistan or Iraq, and that it

was being planned at a time when Bill Clinton was close to finalising a Middle East peace settlement (a settlement that Yasser Arafat foolishly rejected at Camp David).

As Iranian exile and essayist Amir Taheri pointed out in The Times on July 8: "We are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. "Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you."

There is no evidence that jihadist terrorists act because of poor social conditions in Middle Eastern countries. Indeed, as the work of George Joffe of Cambridge University has demonstrated, most of the terrorists come from

privileged backgrounds and have had Western educations. It is, of course, true that past policy failings by the West have contributed to the political conditions that have allowed the jihadist sects to emerge from the Arab world.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as much during her recent tour of the region.

But Mr Cleary can't have it both ways.

If he opposed the old US policy of propping up dictators in the interest of stability, how can he also oppose the new policy of removing dictators in the interest of democracy?

DOUGLAS KIRSNER is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University.