Volodymyr Kish.
Last week, Toronto, one of the last of the world’s major cities not to have experienced a major act of terrorism, finally joined what has become a disturbing reality across the globe. Although the incident which saw ten innocent people killed and many more injured by a deranged individual driving a van down a crowded sidewalk was not politically motivated, it was nonetheless an act of terrorism, albeit a personal one. It turned out that the perpetrator committed the act as misogynistic revenge against women, having experienced countless rejections by the fairer sex of his clumsy advances. What is significant was that his modus operandi was inspired by similar acts committed for other reasons by Islamic terrorists in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Israel, Sweden, Spain and other places in recent years. Death by vehicle was and is a favourite tactic of ISIS, Al Queda and other terrorist groups.
These groups have become a major source of fear and frustration throughout much of the civilized world. They spring up, cause much death, destruction and chaos, fade away, and just as quickly are replaced by other groups. What remains consistent is the fact that these groups are not just a handful of amateur radicals pushing their warped ideology with scrounged up resources. They are in fact well-financed, well-trained, well-armed and well-guided by professionals that are part of big power geo-political manipulation.
Groups like ISIS, Al Queda, Daesh or the Taliban need state support and financing to purchase arms, train their followers and to engage in the large-scale terrorist operations they are notorious for. We are talking of hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more. Although some comes from private individual sources, it would be safe to say that state sponsors are the primary source of such assistance.
Many major states such as Iran, Russia and China are well known for supporting and arming underground movements and terrorist groups. In former years, countries such as Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Sudan and others were quite active in supporting extremist and rebel movements. What is disturbing is that even certain supposed NATO members, allies or western friendly nations such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan have also been known to covertly assist groups and movements deemed terrorist. Even the world’s pre-eminent big power, the U.S., is not innocent of having covertly or directly supported regimes and groups of dubious character.
It seems to be that any ambitious terrorist group has little difficulty in finding the finances and access to the military weaponry it needs to cause havoc and destruction. There are too many states eager to help them wage guerilla or covert war as a means of getting back at other states with whom they have a real or imagined grievance. Which, of course, is why the military industrial complex in the world’s largest countries is so huge and profitable.
Let’s face the facts. The overwhelming majority of military weaponry and ammunition is produced in a small number of countries. The top 10 are the U.S. Russia, China, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Ukraine and Israel. The top 10 importers of such arms are India, Saudi Arabia, the UAR, China, Australia, Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan and Vietnam. With a few exceptions, military technology and ammunition is produced in First World countries and sold to Third World countries. From there it easily finds its way into the global underground arms market that fuels all the small as well as large-scale wars, conflicts and rebellions that proliferate around the globe.
The major arms producing states could easily control the production and distribution of their deadly wares if they wanted to, but they have too much of a vested interest in creating the proxy wars and conflicts through which they advance their geo-political strategies. Whether we like it or not, the world is divided into conflicting ideological spheres of interest led by the U.S., the European Union, China, the Mid East, as well as some lesser pretenders, all of whom continue to jockey for dominance. So long as this kind of thinking prevails, and we fail to find common ground for world peace and cooperation, terrorism will continue to be not only tolerated, but clandestinely supported by most of the world’s most powerful countries.
The so-called current war on terrorism is really a sham, since its focus is on the individual terrorists or groups themselves, and not on the large states that support and finance them. Terrorism will only be brought to heel when we hold those nations to account and demand a higher standard of ethics and morality from our world leaders.
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