Sorrowful Europe critical of US policies

Sorrowful Europe critical of US policies
Paris - 11 September 2003 14:14
Mail and Guardian on line

On Thursday Europe remembered the September 11 attacks with a mixture of sorrow and sharp criticism of United States policies that commentators said had heightened rather than diminished the risk of global terrorism.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia said his country was grieving with the US on the second anniversary of the attacks, but he urged Washington to seek compromises with its allies.

"Everybody has now been convinced that we can only win this fight if the entire international community works together in solidarity," Ivanov said in a reference to the US decision not to seek United Nations approval of the war on Iraq.

In Vienna, the daily Die Presse devoted five pages to coverage of the anniversary in which it pointed out the pitfalls of opening a new front against terrorism in Iraq.

"Iraq has become the new land of the jihad [holy war], where extremists pit themselves against a 'faithless' occupying force," it said, adding that Islamic extremism "cannot be conquered through war".

Fears of Islamic extremism were revived by pictures of Osama bin Laden on the front pages of many European newspapers, and a warning purportedly coming from the number two in the al-Qaeda network, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that the battle with the US had yet to begin.

While Britain planned no official commemoration, one isolated group of Islamic radicals did not miss the opportunity to praise the "Magnificent 19" suicide hijackers who carried out the attacks.

A spokesperson for the al-Mouhadjiroun group appealed to Britain's tradition of free speech and said four public meetings about the event were intended to "reflect on the hidden meanings behind the attacks".

In Madrid, Spanish Judge Balthasar Garzon kept a reporter for the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera, Tayssir Alluni, in detention pending further investigation of his alleged links to al-Qaeda, judicial sources said. He was arrested last Friday while on vacation in Granada.

European reaction to President George Bush's war on terrorism was largely negative.

Two years on, the successes of the war were minimal, and "its failings stand as monuments to US misconceptions about the world and the reach of state power," said The Independent of London.

At the same time, liberties in the US have been curbed and "neither individual countries, nor the world, have become significantly safer as a result."

The German press lamented not only the tragedy two years ago but also the transatlantic rift that that has developed over the war in Iraq.

"It is not just the feeling of security that has been lost," said the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "Political solidarity, the much-vaunted community of values of the West, bound in the transatlantic alliance, is wobbling."

The mass circulation Bild lashed out at the "idiots" who weave conspiracy theories about September 11, accusing them of taunting the dead, while Die Welt commented on the gradual "de-Westernisation" of Germany as a result of the government's strained relationship with Washington over Iraq.

But the Frankfurter Rundschau said Bush had "radicalised with his rhetoric" notions of power and expansion that have been around for the past 30 years.

In Turkey, another reluctant US ally following the invasion of Iraq, the mass circulation Milliyet warned that terrorism cannot be defeated by military means alone.

"One should very carefully evaluate the many causes of terrorism and seek also political, economic and social ways of eradicating it," it said.

The Turkish daily Radikal said, "While Americans still feel unsafe two years after the attacks, the US administration has created an array of new problems for the world by deploying its soldiers across the world under the pretext of combatting terrorism."

Bulgaria's Standard newspaper said the events of September 11 had "rearranged the geopolitical scene" by hastening the entry of Bulgaria and other East European nations into Nato and giving the Atlantic alliance a role outside Europe for the first time.

Many editorial writers reflected not only on the events of September 11 in themselves, but on the way in which the whole world has become a target for terrorism.

"Once the character of al-Qaeda had been revealed with its ambition to visit death on so many people as an end in itself, there could be no more illusions on the nature of this terror," said The Times of London.

"This was an attack on tolerance and on pluralism; and its tragic toll provided succour for a new generation of extremists. The old concept of safety cannot be rebuilt." -- Sapa-AFP