17 September 2001, Copyright © Turkish Daily News
Editorial by Ilnur Cevik
The mission should be to stamp out terrorism and their sources of support once and for all. The enemies should be properly identified and finished off in a long-haul struggle
Shadow boxing
The United States is intent on "punishing," yet despite widespread belief that terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden is the culprit for the ghastly attack against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, who really is the "enemy" remains to be seen.
There are already cracks in the international coalition set up against terrorism with several countries urging caution and restraint.
The international community is more than ready to cooperate with the United States to save humanity from the common threat of terrorism. Yet we should not be pushed into a meaningless exercise in shadow boxing. Instead the enemy and more probably the enemies should be properly identified and then the struggle should be launched in earnest.
This kind of struggle will not be simply to bomb a country and eliminate the enemies but it will be a long and cumbersome fight that will need stamina and determination. The cause against terrorism is just but it still should not be diluted with meaningless nationalist arguments and bickering. This is one thing the United States has to be extremely careful about.
The terrorist organizations and the states that have harbored them or have given them any kind of support should be properly isolated and punished.
But we see with some concern that there is a great deal of finger pointing and accusations, which only seem to be helping the terrorists take the necessary precautions. If bin Laden and his associates are really involved in the latest terrorist attacks they have been given enough time to scatter and take necessary measures to prevent any harm coming their way.
Bin Laden and people like him should be caught and put on trial in special courts like the International War Crimes Court at the Hague. Turkey has done this with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist leader Abdullah Ocalan but that needed international cooperation and we feel this is where the good offices of Pakistan as well as other states are needed.
The mission should not be to bomb countries and kill as many people as possible to avenge the deaths of roughly 5,000 Americans who lost their lives in last week's terrorist attack.
Turkey is fully behind the American people in their time of distress. We do not only want to avenge the deaths of so many innocent people but we want the international community to stamp out terrorism and properly wipe out all sources of support for these criminals. But we also do not want to be dragged into a meaningless struggle that will not achieve all these goals.
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