Even while insisting that 9/11 terrorist attacks were unique in terms of the sophisticated planning that preceded them, choice of targets, scale of destruction and number of casualties, Americans want the response to every terrorist attack anywhere in the world to parallel their own. Mumbai attacks, according to this narrative, were India's Sept. 11 but the UPA government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh was level-headed and restrained in its reaction. Now France is facing a similar situation or challenge following the terrorist attacks on the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo in which 17 people were killed. There is no dearth of commentators and talk show heads, especially in the US, who would like the French to follow the Bush lead in the matter. Is Paris walking into the trap? Signs are not encouraging. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that 54 people had been arrested on terrorism charges though none had been linked to any violence. The French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala was arrested Wednesday, on suspicion of condoning terrorism. He will be prosecuted under a 2013 law against “direct” or “indirect” incitement of terrorism. According to Le Monde newspaper, nearly 70 legal proceedings had been opened for “apology and threats of terrorist attacks” since the Charlie Hebdo incident. Five sentences had been handed down, including one for a man who had reportedly yelled in the street: “... they were right to do that.” Many dispute the American contention that 9/11 changed the world but everybody agrees that it changed the US and how the rest of the world view the superpower. The September attacks drew worldwide sympathy for America. But by launching a misconceived war against an ill-defined enemy and invading Afghanistan and then Iraq, America squandered this moral capital. Even this would have been justified if it succeeded in its objectives. Unfortunately, the world is a less safe place now than it was in 2001 and Afghanistan and Iraq, especially the latter, have become the most dangerous places on earth. There have been major terrorist attacks in Istanbul, Jakarta, Bali, Sinai, Amman, Mombasa, Casablanca, Yemen, northern Tunisia, Madrid and London. Groups linked loosely with the Al-Qaeda are active in Yemen, Nigeria, Algeria and the Horn of Africa. Worse still, to fight an enemy or enemies who “hate our values,” the same values have been thrown to the wind. Civil liberties have been curbed. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are only some the most repulsive features of this war. America now confronts a war without end, with citizens' privacy and sense of safety permanently compromised. The only beneficiaries have been terrorists of various hues and a vast new security industry, both reinforcing each other. As the war on terror enters its 15th year, we see Americans relying heavily on extensive use of Special Forces in night raids and of armed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. True, many terrorists or paramilitaries have been killed or captured, but this was at the cost of huge civilian casualties which directly play into the hands of extremists. Saner voices calling for calm and restraint were ignored. They wanted the response to be based on efficient policing, good intelligence, and international legal processes aimed at bringing to justice those behind the attacks. If the results so far have been counterproductive, it only shows America's response was neither appropriate nor wise. The French or any other nation can't do the American thing again and again and expect a different result. France has also to think of the impact of its policies on the internal situation. It has the largest Muslim population in Europe (5 million, half of them below 24). Compared to Muslims in America, they are poor, uneducated and socially backward. This means France has to guard against policies that aggravate religious tensions. Any overreaction on the part of the government will only benefit the right-wing in French political establishment, especially anti-immigrant National Front and the demagogues in the Muslim community. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, was kept away from a Jan. 11 mass protest march led by President Francois Hollande and over 40 world leaders in response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, but any policy based on suspicion and stereotyping will only help the Front consolidate its position among the French voters. French government's aim should be to utilize last week's tragedy to drive a wedge between violent extremists and France's Muslims, not to deepen the divide between the Muslim minority and the rest of the country.
