International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 59

Know What You Are Fighting
the noses of the security services of these same powers, from New York to Paris, and
in London.
Even today, the physical, military dimension of the antiterrorism struggle is
privileged, continuing to ignore the psychological dimension of what could generate
terrorism on its own. Before September 11, some states preferred ignoring the new
terrorist reality, its international scale, and its ideology. Others knew of the danger but
thought they were protected by their systems of defense.
Even worse, states were harboring and equipping terrorists due to selfish
strategies. The countries targeted, like Algeria, vainly attempted to give alerts on
the global danger of the phenomenon. The massacres and devastation committed in
Algeria caused controversy, as moderates believed the affair was limited to Algeria.
With September 11, the world realized the extent of the terrorist peril, even worse than
organized crime, even in the most powerful countries.
Sounding the alarm, these events produced unprecedented international
cooperation in the face of the terrorist threat. In the process of being studied or
already underway, a panoply of measures were adopted with the idea of fighting this
scourge until it is eradicated. At first, these efforts involved preventive and repressive
techniques and strategies of defense. A colossal offensive was then launched to stop
the evil at its source. However, the material aspect of the fight took precedence over
its intellectual or moral aspect.
The intellectual matrix of the “terrorist nebula,” the ideology that turns a person
into a savage beast, a deadly machine, or a human bomb to be used at any place or
time, was neglected in favor of technical and operational terrorism. More dangerous
and pernicious than criminal know-how, less expensive, and prospering in the shelter
of individual and collective religious freedoms, the method of mass indoctrination has
drawn little attention from specialists.
The defeat of the Taliban and the GIA reduced to the state of wandering
cells in the process of elimination did not, however, obliterate the psychological
mechanisms or the discourses developed to create the feeling of power and temptation
of martyrdom through the sole path of Jihad. The military defeat of terrorists did not
do anything to reduce the affective charge legitimizing terror. Contrary to what we
think, the international mobilization and solidarity after September 11 and the blows
dealt to terrorism in Algeria, Afghanistan, through Europe and America, had no effect
on the feeling of power and faith in a cause that fanatically denies the power of the
enemy, no matter who it is. Fatwas cannot be fought with high technology; material
means are inappropriate here.
Represented today by the United States and a few other countries in Europe
and Asia, high-tech military power is not very effective against fatwas, 56 this “process
of legitimization of criminal action,” according to Étienne de Greeff. These states
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Fatwa meant here in the distorted sense used for criminal ends.
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