The threat of terror
The threat posed by terrorists against Australia should not be underestimated, says Dr Carl Ungerer, director of the National Security Project at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in a special interview.
ZEDDY LAWRENCE
It’s only in the past decade that we’ve become familiar with the notion of Islamic terrorism. Did we not see it coming?
Throughout the 1990s in Australia, terrorism wasn’t discussed in the security and intelligence world. The 1997 foreign policy white paper mentioned terrorism once in terms of our foreign policy interest, and that was in the context of the Arab-Israeli dispute. When I was working in the intelligence community in 2001, we didn’t have one full-time terrorism analyst.
It was simply not a priority, which is interesting because during the 1990s, not only did you have a series of al-Qaeda bombings, from the World Trade Centre in 1993 onwards, right through to USS Cole in 2000, but tens of thousands of South-East Asians in particular were passing through Afghani al-Qaeda training camps. But it wasn’t a priority for the government at the time. We saw terrorism as just a nuisance activity focused on Europe and the Middle East, not one that would affect our interests or security in any particular way.
How influential were the September 11 attacks in changing that perception among both the terrorist and the wider community?
It was incredibly important. [Terrorism expert] Brian Jenkins always said terrorism is the “propaganda of the deed”. But the interesting thing for Australia is that September 11 didn’t really begin to shift thinking within government about the nature of threat.
That only occurred after the Bali bombings in 2002, because even September 11 was considered something that happened a long way away -— it wasn’t really something that impinged on our national security interests. Once you had Bali though, that was the catalyst that changed the entire dynamic in government, to the point that since Bali to the end of the decade, we’ll have spent $10 billion on new national security measures primarily directed at the terrorist threat.
Islamic terrorism is often tied in with the Arab-Israeli conflict and suggestions that if that could be resolved, the threat would be reduced. Is there any real correlation between the two?
No, it’s completely manufactured. But that doesn’t mean not solving that conflict wouldn’t suck some of the oxygen away from that narrative and that argument. So, I’m in favour of some sort of peace settlement, simply because that would take away from that kind of argument. But this wave of terrorism would occur without the Palestinian conflict -— of that I have no doubt.
The really interesting thing, particularly about groups in South-East Asia, is that they have no real reference back to what’s occurring in that region, so Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, who committed the first Bali bombing, speak very little about Palestine in their justifications for the killing.
They speak much more of their grievances about what they call “western foreign policy”. They tuck American and Australian support for Israel under that but, nonetheless, it’s western foreign policy and the committing of troops to Muslim countries, in particular, that are the rationale for their acts of violence.
But committal of troops now is largely in response to such acts of terrorism. So there must be another ultimate end?
There are political objectives at the base of much of what’s being done. Whether they can achieve that in a democratic political process remains to be seen. But the introduction of shari’a law and the introduction of a caliphate system are the two principal political objectives that seem to sit underneath the narrative.
Whether they really want that, I’m not sure, but nonetheless that’s what they continue to say … to get their hands on a country, as they did in Afghanistan at least under the Taliban, in which to build that sort of regime.
The problem, of course, was that [Afghanistan] was a narco-state, and the world had every right to invade simply because it was supplying the world’s heroin, and its human rights abuses of women and children in particular were terrible, and you couldn’t allow that to go on either. So I don’t know how it ends. But I don’t think you’ll ever take the religious aspects out of terrorism.
So the threat would remain even if Israel ceased to be, if the Palestinians got their own state, and if western troops pulled out of Muslim countries?
Absolutely, we would still see the same thing, because that’s not the dynamic that’s driving them.
If the threat isn’t receding, why don’t you think people realise that?
There’s a sense of complacency in the public debate because Australia has not been attacked successfully. I think that’s dangerous because the moment you take your foot off the throat of this thing is when it starts to gain legs again and could be dangerous. I think al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups will continue their efforts to conduct a terrorist campaign in Australia. We just have to be smarter and faster.
How serious is the threat against the Jewish community?
Diplomatic facilities here in Australia have been directly named in target lists, so it’s a real worry. But I think the Government has become more attuned to that and there is a really good relationship now between the security and intelligence services and the Jewish community in terms of providing better security information and communication about what the threat looks like.
Is there evidence of active cells within Australia?
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will never publish the figures, but there will be, however, many active plots they’re trying to disrupt at any one time.
So if these groups exist, why is there this complacency?
I think complacency is in public debate partly because the national security agenda is now so crowded. People talk about climate change as a national security issue, and energy security as a national security issue. And this crowding out of the national security space means that terrorism is seen as one of those enduring and ongoing problems that we need to face. I guess what I’ve been trying to say is that it is the most insidious of all these threats and the one we have to work hardest against.
Will it take an actual attack then before people wake up and realise that?
Yes. And I continue to rattle the chain to say complacency is our biggest enemy and we have to be ever vigilant.
One of the key problems you highlight is propaganda as a tool for radicalisation, particularly in the digital age. How do we counter that?
It’s very difficult. Countries such as ours have used net filters to try to bring down material, to stop it and to use sting operations. The fact is the security agencies often don’t mind it being up there, because they can access it and it gives them a window into what’s occurring.
So that monitoring capability remains an important part of knowing your enemy. But, like child pornography, there is material out there that is so abhorrent and incites violence, that I think it has to be removed.
The difficulty, of course, is that as a global system of systems, it’s almost impossible to track down where one particular cache of information might sit at any one time. And it can be replicated immediately through proxy sites and all sorts of technical aspects of the web.
What I’m really worried about is these Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook and Twitter. I can get the web on this phone. I can download jihadist websites on it right now.
The danger as technology moves forwards is among younger and younger generations, particularly those at that identity stage in their teenage years, not sure of who they are. They’re looking for information to guide them, and if this information is available to them and easily accessed, then surely this radicalising influence is going to be just as pervasive.
You’ve said the global response to terrorism has been 95 per cent military and five per cent propaganda, but the figures have to be reversed. How do we achieve that?
I’d like to see much greater effort placed on the counter-radicalisation agenda in all its forms. We’re beginning to understand what the radicalistion process looks like and maybe how to intervene at certain points. But the reality of what we’re seeing in terms of propaganda aimed at children is that we have to start this process with young children in our schools.
And just like we teach them that there are people out there who will do bad things to them in sexual ways, we have to teach them that there are bad people out there in religious terms as well.
We should be putting as much effort as we do into protecting them from religious exploitation as we do in protecting them from sexual exploitation.
Zeddy Lawrence is the AJN’s national editor.
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