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Terrorism's Silent Partner at the UN

(Los Angeles Times) Joshua Muravchik - This month, the UN Security Council voted to condemn terrorism in a resolution introduced by Russia. But the convoluted text and the dealings behind the scenes that were necessary to secure agreement offer cold comfort to anyone who cares about winning the war against terrorism. Even after Beslan and after Madrid and after 9/11, the UN still cannot bring itself to oppose terrorism unequivocally because the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which comprises 56 of the UN's 191 members, defends terrorism as a right. The U.S. delegation tried to get language into the resolution stating that the deliberate massacre of innocents is never justifiable in any cause, but this was rebuffed by Algeria and Pakistan, the two OIC members currently sitting on the Security Council. For eight years now, a UN committee has labored to draft a "comprehensive convention on international terrorism." Everyone understands what terrorism is: the deliberate targeting of civilians. The Islamic Conference, however, has insisted that terrorism must be defined not by the nature of the act but by its purpose. In this view, any act done in the cause of "national liberation," no matter how bestial or how random or defenseless the victims, cannot be considered terrorism. This boils down to saying that terrorism on behalf of bad causes is bad, but terrorism on behalf of good causes is good. Obviously, anyone who takes such a position is not against terrorism at all - but only against bad causes. As Pakistan's envoy to the UN, Munir Akram, put it: "We ought not, in our desire to confront terrorism, erode the principle of the legitimacy of national resistance that we have upheld for 50 years." As long as the Islamic states resist any blanket condemnation of terrorism, we will remain a long way from ridding the Earth of its scourge. And the UN, in which they account for nearly one-third of the votes, will be helpless to bring us any closer. The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
2004-10-20 00:00:00
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