[A dispatch from this year's ICT conference in Herzliya, Israel]
Once upon a time Al Qaida enjoyed free and unfettered use of Afghanistan as a base of operations.
9-11 was the result.
In the aftermath of 9-11 Afghanistan was invaded.
The Taliban, though driven from power, are far from vanquished, and indeed lately they have been staging a come back.
Al Qaida, while more than merely inconvenienced, has adapted to the new circumstances, distributed its forces around the globe, launched a full scale terrorist war against the US-backed government of Iraq, carried out well-planned and executed attacks throughout the Middle East and Europe, and still makes use of Afghanistan, though perhaps not to the extent that they once did.
Despite all this, there is broad agreement that the invasion of Afghanistan was necessary and justified. Despite Al Qaida's resilience and resurgence, few question the wisdom of driving the Taliban from power and disrupting Al Qaida's ability to make free and unfettered use of Afghan territory, and fewer still suggest that the United States and its allies should have done nothing but sit and watch as Al Qaida used Afghanistan as a base for planning and executing the next attack.
So Afghanistan was invaded.
It had to be done.
It had to be done, and it was not enough.
So it is with the Internet.
Al Qaida makes extensive use of the internet to plan and execute operations, train and indoctrinate new generations of terrorists, and generally to overcome what limits the occupation of Afghanistan by US and Coalition forces imposes on them. The Internet is another front, another theater of operations, another "failed state" if you will, where there is no rule of law in any meaningful sense.
Surrendering this territory to Al Qaida without a fight would have disastrous consequences.
Thus I note with no small amount of irony that some of the greatest minds in American counter-terrorism - people who believe whole-heartedly that the US invasion of Afghanistan was the right thing to do despite the fact that Al Qaida survived - are convinced that when it comes to the Internet, resistance is futile. They tell us that shutting down the web sites of the global jihad is a "fool's errand". They believe this is the case regardless of who it is that ultimately decides to shut such websites down.
Governments around the globe should be advised to remove from the books all laws against incitement to violence, and internet service providers must be told that they are obligated to provide services to Al Qaida: the American counter-terrorism experts say so.
And what is the argument used to support the notion that we should not combat the use of the Internet by Al Qaida?
That there are "4000 Islamist websites".
If one were to Google for the word 'Jihad' written in Arabic, I suspect one would find considerably more than 4,000 websites. In any event, if there are 4,000 such sites, 3,900 are of no relevance or value, and another 90 are peripheral. 10 might be considered of high quality. None of which argues against taking action against Al Qaida's use of the Internet.
If Al Qaida is using the Internet we must combat them on the Internet.
It must be done.
It must be done, and it is not enough.
Posted on 13 September 2005 @ 01:27