Former Mossad boss steels West for 'third world war'
Terrorist roundups prove only the need for tougher measures, ex-spymaster tells COLIN FREEZE
COLIN FREEZE
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
22/08/06
TORONTO -- Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, many experts feel that the war on terror has reached its climax. Yet a former Israeli spymaster is urging the West to gird for the long haul and take ever-tougher steps to fight terrorism.
"This is a third world war," Efraim Halevy, Mossad director from 1998 to 2002, told The Globe and Mail in an interview yesterday. "International Islamic terror has made its objectives and aims very clear."
Although al-Qaeda-inspired plots have been thwarted this summer in Britain and Canada, Mr. Halevy takes scant comfort in the arrests. He said they simply prove that more vigilance is needed against a threat that is still growing.
"Imagine [the Toronto group] was not penetrated," was his advice to Canadian lawmakers. "Even if a plot has been uncovered, you must treat the threat as if the plot had succeeded."
Mr. Halevy conceded that such a mindset would necessarily lead politicians to consider racial profiling, short-term preventive detentions and other measures that would seem anathema to democratic civil liberties.
"The price is a high price," he conceded. "Socially, politically, internally, internationally, it's a high price to pay. But the alternative is even more horrendous."
His remarks stand in contrast to many of the prevailing opinions in the West. High-profile controversies -- examples include the Guantanamo Bay prison experiment, the U.S-led invasion of Iraq, the so-called extraordinary renditions of terrorism suspects to face imprisonment or torture in foreign states -- have prompted judges, politicians and citizens to call for anti-terrorism measures to be reined in, not expanded.
Even some of Mr. Halevy's contemporaries agree, to a point.
"We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid," Canadian Security Intelligence Service chief Jim Judd said last week.
"The wartime approach made sense for a while, but as time passes and the situation changes, so must the strategy," Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI6 from 1999 to 2004, told the Atlantic Monthly this month.
But Mr. Halevy lamented that not enough is being done to fight al-Qaeda-style terrorism. Sooner or later, he said, Western democracies will have to realize that.
"This is a third world war. I would disagree entirely with the premise of Dearlove," he said yesterday.
While Israeli civilians have been constantly targeted by attacks, Mr. Halevy observed, countries that have never been attacked refuse to accept the fact that they may be in danger. He finds that even countries that have been hit, such as Britain, tend to become complacent within months of attacks.
Mr. Halevy was in Toronto yesterday to promote his memoir, Man in the Shadows, published earlier this year. In the book, he argues that the threat of international terrorism is growing, leaving Western democracies no choice but to team up and aggressively root out terrorists wherever they can be found.
But he also pointed out that recent years have elevated the status of a group he calls "the professionals," security chiefs who advise politicians, as he did. Their roles are rightly growing ever more important, he said.
A pragmatist, Mr. Halevy met many Arab and Muslim leaders through his work, and said that he would not close the door to talks with Hamas, Hezbollah or even Iran. But he says the threat posed by al-Qaeda's ideology is by far the most sinister one that exists today.
Its goal, he said, "is to disrupt societies of the free world, to cripple the economies of the free world, to force the free world to get out of the hair of the Muslim states, to facilitate the advance of Islam so that ultimately Islam will reach the goal [where] the world as a whole will be the world of Islam."
Yet he fears that many Western democracies, including Canada, will fail to pay adequate attention until they are attacked. Even then, the window for new laws will be short, he said.
"But I can assure that if there were such an event in Canada, for two to three months, the government could get through certain measures it could never get through before," he said.
"The key is, in my opinion, to line up in advance all the measures you think are necessary. Realize you can't get them approved until there is an act. Hope for the better, that there will be no such act, but be ready."
COLIN FREEZE
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
22/08/06
TORONTO -- Five years after Sept. 11, 2001, many experts feel that the war on terror has reached its climax. Yet a former Israeli spymaster is urging the West to gird for the long haul and take ever-tougher steps to fight terrorism.
"This is a third world war," Efraim Halevy, Mossad director from 1998 to 2002, told The Globe and Mail in an interview yesterday. "International Islamic terror has made its objectives and aims very clear."
Although al-Qaeda-inspired plots have been thwarted this summer in Britain and Canada, Mr. Halevy takes scant comfort in the arrests. He said they simply prove that more vigilance is needed against a threat that is still growing.
"Imagine [the Toronto group] was not penetrated," was his advice to Canadian lawmakers. "Even if a plot has been uncovered, you must treat the threat as if the plot had succeeded."
Mr. Halevy conceded that such a mindset would necessarily lead politicians to consider racial profiling, short-term preventive detentions and other measures that would seem anathema to democratic civil liberties.
"The price is a high price," he conceded. "Socially, politically, internally, internationally, it's a high price to pay. But the alternative is even more horrendous."
His remarks stand in contrast to many of the prevailing opinions in the West. High-profile controversies -- examples include the Guantanamo Bay prison experiment, the U.S-led invasion of Iraq, the so-called extraordinary renditions of terrorism suspects to face imprisonment or torture in foreign states -- have prompted judges, politicians and citizens to call for anti-terrorism measures to be reined in, not expanded.
Even some of Mr. Halevy's contemporaries agree, to a point.
"We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid," Canadian Security Intelligence Service chief Jim Judd said last week.
"The wartime approach made sense for a while, but as time passes and the situation changes, so must the strategy," Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI6 from 1999 to 2004, told the Atlantic Monthly this month.
But Mr. Halevy lamented that not enough is being done to fight al-Qaeda-style terrorism. Sooner or later, he said, Western democracies will have to realize that.
"This is a third world war. I would disagree entirely with the premise of Dearlove," he said yesterday.
While Israeli civilians have been constantly targeted by attacks, Mr. Halevy observed, countries that have never been attacked refuse to accept the fact that they may be in danger. He finds that even countries that have been hit, such as Britain, tend to become complacent within months of attacks.
Mr. Halevy was in Toronto yesterday to promote his memoir, Man in the Shadows, published earlier this year. In the book, he argues that the threat of international terrorism is growing, leaving Western democracies no choice but to team up and aggressively root out terrorists wherever they can be found.
But he also pointed out that recent years have elevated the status of a group he calls "the professionals," security chiefs who advise politicians, as he did. Their roles are rightly growing ever more important, he said.
A pragmatist, Mr. Halevy met many Arab and Muslim leaders through his work, and said that he would not close the door to talks with Hamas, Hezbollah or even Iran. But he says the threat posed by al-Qaeda's ideology is by far the most sinister one that exists today.
Its goal, he said, "is to disrupt societies of the free world, to cripple the economies of the free world, to force the free world to get out of the hair of the Muslim states, to facilitate the advance of Islam so that ultimately Islam will reach the goal [where] the world as a whole will be the world of Islam."
Yet he fears that many Western democracies, including Canada, will fail to pay adequate attention until they are attacked. Even then, the window for new laws will be short, he said.
"But I can assure that if there were such an event in Canada, for two to three months, the government could get through certain measures it could never get through before," he said.
"The key is, in my opinion, to line up in advance all the measures you think are necessary. Realize you can't get them approved until there is an act. Hope for the better, that there will be no such act, but be ready."
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 8:03 PM
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