The Suicide Bomber: A Minor Danger?

Recently the Noble Prize winner of literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, published an article in El Pais in Madrid about the suicide bomber.

Following a historic review of World War II, the novelist describes how this type of suicide emerged, and his thesis is apocalyptic, something that others have already stated. The objects of suicide terrorism are not military-based nor well-kept, notes the writer; rather, they are public and defenseless. Today, technology permits for weapons that are easy to carry and hide, and democracies are more vulnerable; therefore, terrorism moves and hides without difficulty, up until the moment of detonating its mortal artifact. Lastly, its goal is not to win a war but rather to terrorize the population and cause open societies to cut back liberties and rights that they have seized with much force and pain. To sum it up, “democracies are no longer democratic.”

This is a dramatic vision, a problem for which little to nothing can be done. According to Vargas Llosa, the suicide bomber continues to win the war, and we, the vulnerable public, are condemned to suffer terror at the hands of fanatics who are willing to die for the sake of mining the pillars of the Occidental civilization.

Fareed Zakaria, however, has a distinct analysis. In the battle against terrorism, he asks, are we more or less safe than before? His answer is conclusive: more. Much more than before 9/11. And his reasons vary.

On the one hand, he calculates that al-Qaida has gone from having 20,000 combatants to less than 400. The offensive in Afghanistan, which overthrew the regime that was supporting bin Laden, destroyed al-Qaida campsites, forcing their members to flee to the mountains. The U.S., along with other countries, has succeeded in accosting the terrorist organization, obstructing their action and, above all, cutting their required revenue to finance their terrorist campaigns. The result is that their initial objective of inflicting hits of great impact on American territory has become very difficult. And the brutal attacks in Madrid, Bali and London, for example, have only estranged the local population against their cause and leaders.

The real danger of al-Qaida, says Zakaria, was not a handful of terrorist attacks but the awakening sympathy for the jihad (the holy war) among the 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, which might conceivably unleash waves of terror. This has not happened. Furthermore, support for the terrorist is decreasing every day. In Muslim countries with elections, parties associated with Islamic extremism have performed very poorly (including in Pakistan, which has the worst terrorism problem in the world), and increasingly, their civic and religious leaders condemn the violence of al-Qaida.

We are not out of harm’s way, says Zakaria, nor will we ever be, because that is the risk of all open societies. It is difficult to be a terrorist in North Korea, as has been shown. But after 9/11, the world has stopped terror’s progress: Al-Qaida is debilitated militarily and economically, and its internal divisions have atomized the central command. This is hardly ever mentioned in the news, but the real danger has been reduced and we should act (and write) with this new reality in mind.