Learn from the Past

Major world capitals seem to be under a siege. After the attack on the World Trade Center in New York the fidayeen attacks all over the world has added a new dimension to the sinister gameplan of the terrorists. The macabre hostage drama in Moscow is the new addition to the ongoing barbaric attack on civilization. About fifty heavily armed Chechen terrorists stormed a Moscow music hall taking more than seven hundred persons as hostages. The Muslim rebels of the breakaway Chechen republic have been opposing the Russian presence in what they are claiming as their Islamic land demanding the immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops. The alleged claim by one of the terrorists that they are prepared to die for the cause of Islam gives enough indications about the origins of the hostage drama and its genesis as well as its links. The Russian President himself is said to have remarked that the same people who had organised the Bali carnage created the hostage crisis. He is reported to have claimed that the attack had been planned in one of the foreign terrorist centres. There is a little doubt that the barbaric hostage drama in Moscow is only the latest in the line of terrorist targets. The entire bizarre evil axis of terror stalking the globe raises many questions. There is pattern in the terror attacks, all the time informing us that terrorism is the new language that the world must understand and respect. Every new flashpoint is heralding a new terrorist outfit and sniffing out lives along with the hope of returning to peace. Why are these flashpoints on the rise? Is it because of the total and unfortunate failure of the only world body, the UN, to recognise and resolve these flashpoints? It should be remembered that it was the abject failure of the League of Nations that triggered the World War changing the course of world events. The Cold War era that started saw the world divided between two conflicting ideologies. On the last leg of the Cold War the US sharpened its weapons on the Islamic ideology by organising the Taliban as a fighting force against the occupation army of the erstwhile USSR. It was the same Taliban that hit out at the US by ramming two aircrafts into the WTC towers. It is strange that the US refuses to learn any lesson from the past. The recent revelations about the nuclear programme of North Korea defy all logic in the conduct of foreign policy by any country. While the US has arrogated to itself the leadership of the anti-terrorism alliance, most of the clandestine arms deal and nuclear proliferation around the world seems to be taking place right under its nose. There are clear indications that the nuclear programme and uranium enrichment technology of North Korea is courtesy the failed State of Pakistan, the most trusted ally of the US. Pakistan itself was supported by China in its nuclear programme. Oblivious to the evil that is evidenced all around the globe, the US seems to be obsessed only with punishing Iraq for it perceives as a threat to the world peace. It is nobody’s argument that the weapons of mass destruction should be allowed to multiply and accumulate in one State, an Islamic dictatorial one at that. There is little doubt that the sting should be taken out of the terrorist regime. But what about the other ones that are equally dangerous if not more? The world needs to come together to clear the cobwebs of the past, steer clear of the ideological potholes, demilitarise the rouge states and rid the world of the evil of terrorism. The civilised world will have to put its shoulders to the wheel, if it wants the good to win over the evil.