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Aditya Jha

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Beyond Condemnation, Condolences and Candlelight Vigil: Time to Act Against Terrorism

Posted: 07/23/11 12:40 PM ET

People all over the world are expressing their condemnation of the Oslo and Mumbai terrorist attacks and offering their condolences to the families of the innocent victims.

The reoccurrence of these attacks in different parts of the world and terrible tragedy inflicted on innocent people should make us think and act beyond "condemnation, condolences and candlelight vigil." The cost and efforts to ensure that these attacks don't happen is prohibitively expensive and practically not feasible since some of these terrorists have jihadi mentality. It is posing serious threats to our civil liberties and peaceful existence. It is with this background that we need to act beyond condemnation and condolences and not in the battle ground and war zones but in our civil set-up where it will hurt most and work best, if we do it right.

First, we need to devise ways and means to do something about the "currency of terrorism." We have pockets in the world that gives value to the currency of terrorism. How can the international community make those who have the currency of terrorism to directly or indirectly pay for having such currency so that the support infrastructure and base gets debilitated and the terrorists have disincentive to engage in such acts?

Second, how we respond immediately and subsequently after the terrible terrorist inflicted tragedies happen is important. Our immediate response to the victims should be out of the internationally-developed standard operating procedure and preparedness. Subsequently, how we look after the victims' families and victims themselves should have the minimum standards of care and support.

Thirdly, we must swiftly and boldly punish the terrorists and not allow them to hide behind the inefficiencies and inordinate delays of the legal system of the different parts of the world or make the taxpayers incur heavy cost of delivering justice to the terrorists and their support network.

The international community should develop the structure of a court for terrorism-related crime that should allow prosecution on a model like we do for crimes against humanity through the international court of justice. Such a court for the terrorism related crime should be established (like a franchise) all around the world with same laws and similar operating procedure and specifically trained justices to man such courts. Crimes by terrorist in any parts of the world should be punishable anywhere and enforceable all around the world.

Finally, the international community needs to create the disincentives for the wannabe terrorists through debilitating financial and social incentives. Their families around the world and organizations they belong to will be made to pay for the damage and hurt they inflict through their terrorist acts. Private and philanthropic resources and efforts should be used to work against the social causes and beliefs that breeds terrorists.

The international community and diaspora organizations around the world should think of starting a discussion for action beyond just the condemnation, condolences and candlelight vigil. The scourge of terrorism is an issue that should be dealt with beyond the boundaries of the nations as this problem belongs to the international community since the tentacles of terrorism knows no boundaries.

 
People all over the world are expressing their condemnation of the Oslo and Mumbai terrorist attacks and offering their condolences to the families of the innocent victims. The reoccurrence of these...
People all over the world are expressing their condemnation of the Oslo and Mumbai terrorist attacks and offering their condolences to the families of the innocent victims. The reoccurrence of these...
 
 
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12:05 PM on 07/25/2011
No kidding! Family of criminals should pay for the crimes of their member? Should you go to jail if your child committed shoplifting, Sir? The rule of law is grounded in the principle of personal responsibility; even under civil responsibility, a third party cannot be held responsible for the act/action or lack therefore of a primary party unless where a "cause and effect", a contract or "principal/agent" relation exists. Another "great" idea from Mr. Jha: "develop and establish" terrorism-related crime courts around the world under a "franchise" model. Whose legal system/principle would be the franchisee/franchisor under Mr. Jha's 21st century state of the art "great" invention? Who would be responsible for overseeing these miniature "world courts", paying the judges/justices sitting on their benches and all other officials? The UN? so-called "international community" which is never defined by anyone? the usual world "milk-filled" cow USA? countries like Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda unable to even grow, let alone import enough rice/wheat to avert episodic deadly famine crisis every other decade?

Mr. Jha, Norway is teaching us a lesson on how secured grown-ups respond and act in the face of terror-related mass tragedy, you should pay attention and stop this hysteria. Your so-called "international criminal court" is barely recognized by some countries, big and small, even their arrest and indictment warrants are not worth the paper on which they are written, what makes you think your new invention would fly?
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Dan Same
06:08 PM on 07/24/2011
"Finally, the international community needs to create the disincentives for the wannabe terrorists through debilitating financial and social incentives. Their families around the world and organizations they belong to will be made to pay for the damage and hurt they inflict through their terrorist acts. Private and philanthropic resources and efforts should be used to work against the social causes and beliefs that breeds terrorists."

That is assuming that families can control whether their children venture into terrorism or not. Many people become terrorists independently of the wishes of their families, and to punish their families is simply punitive.
05:23 PM on 07/24/2011
The terrorism in Oslo is religious extremism in action. Stop yakking about the Muslims and start looking at extremists. There is madness in every religion and right now it looks like it is just as forceful in Christianity and Juaism as it is in Islam. And stop giving archaic reasons to justify it. Stop quoting one verse from a Holy Text you don't understand and havent' read to justify it. Religion is a time bomb.
07:33 PM on 07/23/2011
This incidence is the most unfortunate to happen to this great country. This is a society so referenced as the best place to live on this planet. It is therefore strange that one of them is not happy with the system and took it upon himself to cause great havoc. That is inhumane.

However, it was a big relieve to the immigration community that the shooter and bomber is a Norwegian and not a foreigner, that could have spelt doom for the community.

No matter who is involved, so much damage is done beyond expectation or imagination. No one would think this will ever happen in Norway. That Anders Behring Breivik went undetected is even stranger.

It is a wake up call that the society is not as safe as we thought and the needs to train the citizens to be more security conscious. One can only imagine the panic that gripped the kids, the anxiety, the confusion in the Island.

May the soul of those killed in this senseless killing and cold blooded murder rest in peace.
04:58 PM on 07/23/2011
I disagree whole heartedly. We need to treat "terrorism" as what it is. Premeditated murder is premeditated murder, and we do a disservice elevating the perpetrators to some status other than murderer. Their motivations are irrelevant. To the extent that they have financial support from an organization or government, the involved individuals are nothing more than co-conspirators, and should be investigated and charged accordingly. How hard is this?
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Dan Same
06:57 PM on 07/24/2011
Of course it is premeditated murder (I don't believe the article claimed otherwise; it did compare terrorism to crimes against humanity afterall), however we differentiate between murders, and elevate perpetrators, all the time. If someone kills the US President, they will be pursued more aggressively than if they had killed a drug dealer. To use a less extreme example, cop killings are treated differently (often in law) to other murders. Whether we agree with it personally, the fact is that society does not treat all premeditated murders the same. Furthermore, if we take a preventative approach, we can prevent more murders. It doesn't mean we won't respond with the appropriate severity when (or if) the offenders are convicted, but we also shouldn't refuse to attempt to prevent the murders from taking place, by saying 'their motivation­s are irrelevant­.'

One last comment. This does not mean that we should do whatever it takes to prevent terrorism. If someone killed almost a hundred people because they are opposed to multiculturalism, it does not mean we should eliminate multiculturalism.

"How hard is this?"

If it was that simple, terrorism would have been eliminated long ago.
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04:38 PM on 07/23/2011
Mr. Jha, I agree that Terrorism should be a crime against humanity. While many offer best wishes and condolences, few have the political and moral strength to go after the sponsors. Money that flows in to these criminals is the easiest track back to the source. So far while we have gone after many small fishes, the big fish is still swimming free without suffering any consequences.