Lessons from ten years of the global war on terror-September 10, 2011

Lessons from ten years of the global war on terror


Last updated on: September 10, 2011 09:04 IST


Colonel (Dr) Anil Athale (retd) on how the global war on terror has changed the geo-politics of the world and India's role in it.

It is more logical to call it ten years of 'America's war on terror' because the soft state that is India has been suffering from this scourge for much longer period, nearly 30 years. It needs reiteration that till the terror attacks on 9/11, the biggest single terror strike was the blowing up of Air India Boeing 'Kanishka' on June 23, 1985. In that attack 329 Indians were killed. It also must be noted that the perpetrators of that crime continue to roam around freely in Canada and the United States and have never been brought to book.

All traces of the conspiracy behind it were erased at the instance of the 'agency'. In the changed global context it is politically incorrect to rake up the past and the fact that the Khalistani terror campaign against India was a joint Pakistan-US-United Kingdom enterprise.

It is only in 2001 when similar terror visited the mainland US, that the US declared it to be a 'global war on terror' (GWOT for short).

'Realism' dictates that it is the view of the dominant and the powerful that becomes a 'world view' and not that of citizens of Burkina Faso or India. The fact is that till about five years ago and certainly in 2001, the US was the sole superpower. So the world had very little choice but to follow the lead, particularly when the then US President George W Bush declared that 'You are either with the US or against the US!'

The GWOT soon assumed the shape of a hydra-headed monster. There are several dimensions of the GWOT, the first was the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistanistan, and the second was the regional dimension in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The third dimension is the 'freelance' jihad that the American actions and nascent Khilafat ideology generated that saw attacks from UK, Spain, Indonesia and, of course, India. These three strands in GWOT are not independent and reinforced each other. But for ease of understanding it is intended to deal with them separately.