Boston Globe: Europe's terror fight quiet, unrelenting

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <rmfxixB0406 () bobf frankston com>
Date: September 26, 2004 1:32:59 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Boston Globe: Europe's terror fight quiet, unrelenting

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/09/26/ 
europes_terror_fight_quiet_unrelenting?pg=full

From the article:

"The semantics are very important," said Gustavo de Aristegui, a leader  
of the right-of-center Popular Party and a terrorism specialist. He is  
Basque and is shadowed by a bodyguard because of a perceived ETA  
threat.

"For America to keep using the phrase 'war on terror' reflects a deep  
misunderstanding of the threat we face," said Aristegui, who has held  
postings in the Middle East and whose father, also a diplomat, was  
killed in Lebanon by Syrian shelling during the civil war.

"Calling what we face a 'war on terror,' “he added, "is a semantic trap  
that legitimizes a criminal element as a group worthy of being called  
an enemy in a conventional sense, and worthy of being a force with  
which we can engage in war. We need to have language that reflects the  
reality, and the reality is we need to close the faucet of good guys  
going into the pool of bad guys."

The Bush administration has expressed disdain and distrust of any  
approach to the fight against terrorism that sees it as anything short  
of a war, and has questioned Kerry's ability to confront the threat.

In Iowa on Sept. 7, Vice President Dick Cheney said: "If we make the  
wrong choice [then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll  
be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the  
United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if  
you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts  
and that we are not really at war."

Trinidad Jimenez, the spokesman on foreign affairs for the Spanish  
Socialist Party, said: "We know terrorism, but we are not afraid of it.  
. . . We know it needs to be confronted, but we have come to understand  
that it must be confronted intelligently, effectively, and within the  
framework of international and national law.

"Words in this debate matter. The world was fed fear to sell the war in  
Iraq, and the conservatives here tried to manipulate words to stay in  
power," said Jiminez, referring to the previous government's initial  
assessment that Basque separatists carried out the Madrid bombings. "We  
will not be intimidated by Washington trying to say we were weak on  
terror. In fact, we find it offensive."

 

 

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