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Hawai'i a climate for terror
By John Griffin
Get used to terms such as "transnational violence" and "criminal anarchy" when thinking about the war on terrorism in the Asia-Pacific region — including Hawai'i.
Advertiser library photo • Feb. 27, 2002
The outgoing commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Dennis Blair, didn't exactly use those words in his farewell address this month to several Honolulu groups involved in foreign affairs.
Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, who has ties to a Southeast Asian terrorist group, drew attention to threats in Asia. The fact is Hawai'i is more involved in the war on terrorism than most here realize. And we can and should do more to foster cooperation in Asia.
But others around him do. And his speech and a question-and-answer session afterward reminded me again how complex our new world war is becoming.
That and how much Hawai'i itself is involved as a command and coordination center — and a potential target. What we see and are told — even the departing admiral's good talk — seem like the tip of an iceberg of increasing involvement.
This remains so despite the creation of a new Northern Command to help deal with homeland defense. That new command is necessary in dealing with potential Mainland terrorism, but it must not hinder vital U.S. Asia-Pacific involvements which are best coordinated out of CINCPAC.
Right now the major national focus is on the Mideast crisis with its tragic "war of civilizations" potential and on our military action and nation-building in Afghanistan. Yet before the Arab-Israeli conflict escalated, many experts agreed that terrorism's "center of gravity" was shifting toward Asia. Indonesia, for one big example, remains on many minds.
Several random yet related points stand out for me from Adm. Blair's remarks, and from other sources. Those sources include an important closed conference of intelligence specialists from 11 countries on "Transnational Violence and Seams of Lawlessness." It was held earlier this year at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, the think tank at Fort DeRussy under the U.S. Pacific Command.
Those points:
• Along with our Afghan military operation that ousted the Taliban regime and displaced the al-Qaida training infrastructure, there have been other initial successes. Most notable was the shocking December exposure in Singapore, Southeast Asia's most efficiently controlled state, of a terrorist network linked with al-Qaida and planning to bomb U.S. and other embassies. That exposed terrorist ties in several neighboring countries.
Still, nobody's saying that the war on terrorism is anywhere but in the early phases of a long and complicated struggle. This month, Jane's Intelligence Review noted some of the complications, including this one:
"Recent arrests of members of Jemaah Islamiyya in Singapore have played an important role in displacing several myths about the structure and dynamics of al-Qaida that have been propagated by the media. For example, the popular perception of an al-Qaida membership numbering in the hundreds of thousands worldwide was disproved. More realistically, Al-Qaida should be regarded as a 'management consultancy' for the global network of terrorist movements — facilitating exchanges, improving financial well-being and organizing international operations."
• The APCSS terrorism conference here was summed up this way:
"Transnational violence is one of the most serious challenges to the future economic and social progress of the Asia-Pacific region. Certain parts of the region are steadily descending into a state that could be described as 'criminal anarchy.' Other countries, even if they enjoy more stable governance, are hobbled by economic constraints that effectively limit their ability to exert an effective military or law enforcement response to these challenges."
The conference found what might be called a new and real "axis of evil" — increasingly close ties between terrorists and criminal elements involved in arms and drug smuggling, illegal migration, identity fraud, money-laundering and other financial crime.
This point was also made: "Globalization is responsible for many positive trends such as international travel, cross-border money flows, and transnational investment, but it also has a dark side in the form of crime and terrorism which know no boundaries."
• Blair indicated some of the internal and external changes and challenges for his command, which covers more than a third of the earth and deals with 43 countries.
For example, since Sept. 11, the number of his terrorism specialists has grown from three to more than 50. CINCPAC, the Pacific command, also works closer now with the FBI, which has its own Terrorism Task Force operating out of Honolulu; the stress is on thwarting new attacks. A new U.S. military commander will be named for domestic Homeland Defense, and that will call for new kinds of coordination with the Pacific command.
Unlike Europe where we operate largely as part of the multilateral NATO military umbrella, the United States in the Asia-Pacific region has mostly bilateral ties that must be stitched into cooperating coalitions against terrorism and other threats. That is being done several ways.
So new forms of regional cooperation should be evolving, not only for military missions but for other reasons such as economic development. Indeed, some experts feel that it is essential for the United States to forge such ties, including with nongovernmental networks. The call is for creative forms of aid and diplomacy, and perhaps there's a greater role for organizations such as the East-West Center and University of Hawai'i.
We are, then, in a new period. Just as Adm. Blair told how the military's branches are being blended into new kinds of units using amazing new technology, so we should also see how civilian agencies, law enforcement, educational and social institutions, and business also face new challenges — and opportunities.
On the gloomy side, I used to worry that if North Korea went crazy it could fire its limited-range ballistic missiles as far as Hawai'i and Alaska. Certainly, 9/11 indicated how we could also be the target for some other "New Pearl Harbor" that would make a dramatic terrorist statement. No doubt that's been pondered in Washington as well as here.
So the bottom line is that Hawai'i is in the war-on-terrorism picture more than many here realize, certainly in military operations but also in other Asia-Pacific involvement. And we can and should do more.
There is no alternative. As they say, this war is not optional.
John Griffin is a frequent contributor and former editor of The Advertiser's editorial pages.
