A Study in Vindictiveness

“The war against terrorism hasn’t made the world more secure,” wrote Hans Linde, foreign policy spokesperson for the Left Party. The article is the first in a series in which Swedish politicians give their views on how the world has been changed by the terrorist act of Sept. 11, 2001.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the authors of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, once said: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

These words have been reaffirmed in the 10 years that have passed since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

Few can look back over the past decade and assert that the world has become safer, but nobody can disregard how international law and the most basic human rights have been infringed upon in the name of the so-called War on Terror.

With all of the rhetoric about security and freedom, the war has been launched in violation of international law. People have been imprisoned without trial, summary executions have been carried out and surveillance has been extended at privacy’s expense.

Worst is the situation for those whom, according to rhetoric, should be liberated: In Afghanistan the number of dead civilians rises with every passing year and millions of Iraqis still live as refugees after the war that America started.

But the so-called War on Terror has created consequence not only for people in dusty villages in Afghanistan or in the suburbs of Baghdad, but also for us in Sweden. One example among many is the brutal deportations Sweden carried out in collaboration with the CIA in 2001, when Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed Alzery were returned to Egypt where torture and assault awaited them.

The rhetoric of former President George W. Bush about the war between civilizations and crusades has furthermore fomented Islamophobia throughout the Western world. We see the result in the increased number of hate crimes and attacks against Muslims. When a woman in Tomelilla is subjected to stone throwing and verbal abuse simply because she wears a veil, it cannot just be explained by youthful indiscretion. It must be understood in a wider context.

Terrorism exists and needs to be faced, but this should never occur at the expense of international law and human rights. The reaction in Norway after the terror attack in Oslo and on Utöya shows that another way is possible. While Norway showed the strengths of democracy in confrontation with terror, America’s response was a study in the darkest vindictiveness.

How different the world would have been if Bush, like Stoltenberg had said:

“Our response is more democracy, more openness and more humanity.”

The U.S. chose to ignore terror’s breeding ground: the hopelessness and frustration born of poverty. Islamophobia and oppression are terrorists’ best friends and should be the foremost enemies for those of us who want to see a democratic world at peace.

Had the U.S., in 2001, chosen to withdraw its support for oppressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, given its support to a free Palestine and started to pursue commerce and aid policies that counteracted poverty, the world would be far more secure today.

The attacks that have been perpetrated cannot be undone, but now that the so-called War on Terror is entering its eleventh year, it is high time to put an end to the curtailment of human rights and international law in security’s name.