'..successful counterterrorism depends on the unflashy, steady accumulation of information quietly shared by many nations’ intelligence organizations and based on humdrum police work .. torture, be it water-boarding or other coercive methods favored by the Bush administration, provide little useful information while tarnishing our once proud reputation for respecting the rule of law.'<blockquote>'Let’s face it. At the outset of the last decade did Americans suppose that President George W. Bush’s now discarded slogan -- the global war on terrorism -- would bog the U.S. down in a seemingly unwinnable war in Afghanistan, justify invading Iraq on specious pretexts which proved to have nothing to do with Sept. 11 and aggravate a national debt so gigantic that the once mighty dollar is being quietly devalued to help limit the harm done by the exponential growth of red ink?
What we hopefully have learned is that successful counterterrorism depends on the unflashy, steady accumulation of information quietly shared by many nations’ intelligence organizations and based on humdrum police work.
Respecting RightsA corollary in the age of instant communications and the 24/7 news cycle should have taught us that in our own eyes and those of the world we must be seen to be above suspicion when it comes to respecting human rights. The excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo played into the hands of al-Qaeda propaganda.
A professional lifetime covering Third World conflicts long ago convinced me that torture, be it water-boarding or other coercive methods favored by the Bush administration, provide little useful information while tarnishing our once proud reputation for respecting the rule of law.
There are reasons to be optimistic. For instance, Alliance, a dedicated but little known international intelligence clearing house in Paris functioned without a hitch..
..
If the U.S. and its European allies want to keep militant jihadism marginalized, they should avoid repeating the kneejerk support for strongman regimes, many of whom stayed in power by invoking the threat of “us or Osama.”
We would be well advised to spend some of the billions of dollars now earmarked for counterterrorism to shoring up these fledgling democracies. The model should be the fortunes the West so wisely invested in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.'
- Jonathan Randal,
Bin Laden’s Legacy Is Boss Who Lost Control, 2011-05-05</blockquote>