Counterterror Conference Sidesteps Issue of Defining Terrorism

Counterterror Conference Sidesteps Issue of Defining Terrorism -- 02/08/2005, By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com International Editor, February 08, 2005.

Let's Pretend was in session at an international conference on counterterrorism, hosted by Saudi Arabia. The conference ran into Arab participants' reluctance to accept the widely-held Western view that violence against civilians constitutes terrorism, regardless of the circumstances. The conference has brought together hundreds of officials and experts from international organizations and 50 countries, including 16 Arab states. Israel was not on the invitation list.

Let's Pretend's Prince Saud al-Faisal said:

"The solution is in trying to [come up with] detailed proposals to counter terrorism, while dismissing things that might stir controversies and which are related to the definition of terrorism," the host country's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, was quoted as saying.

The main controversy in recent attempts to define terrorism has centered on the Arab-Muslim argument that those fighting "foreign occupation" -- usually a reference to Palestinian "militants" and anti-coalition "insurgents" in Iraq - are not terrorists.

Raphael Patai in The Arab Mind describes the foregoing perfectly. It is typical Arab and now Arab-Islamist thinking. The only entities who dread certainty more than these pretenders are liberals: If you don't name, it either does not exist, or, we do not have to deal with it.

A very liberal U.S. senator actually got it right:

Senator Frank Lautenburg, D-NJ, sent the U. S. administration a letter in which he said, "I believe that U.S. participation in the creation and exchange of effective counterterrorism strategies with known sponsors of terror defies good policy as well as common sense"

The mealy-mouth for the State Department got it wrong:

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said last Friday that U.S. participation in the conference would strengthen counterterrorism cooperation.

Dissecting what was wrong with this conference could take more pages than anyone would read. A few comments demand expression, however.

The purpose of this conference was to create the illusion that something is being done when everyone there knows that it was just show--sound and fury, signifying nothing. But, Arabs love putting on shows. Had they been serious, two things would have been agreed on, in advance: Terrorism would be correctly defined, much like the UN defined it, and Israel would have had a place at the table.

Prince Pretzel twisted himself up to keep from naming the attending terror states as terror sponsoring states. Not inviting Israel gave these cowards a chance to bash Israel and displace their own pathology onto Israel, which had no opportunity to defend itself. Besides, Israel would have demanded an objective definition of terror which would have addressed its source: Islam.

The U.S. should never have attended. That would have underscored the obvious nature of the pathological states attending. The U.S. should have demanded that Israel be invited and attend as a minimum condition for its ownn attendance.

Lastly, what the mealy-mouth spokesman for the mealy State Department said was polar opposite to the truth. Our attendance there sanctioned the charade. We committed a moral error. We furthered terror.