Pubdate: Sun, 07 Apr 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: James Dao

THE WAR ON TERRORISM TAKES AIM AT CRIME

WASHINGTON -- In South America, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of 
Colombia, or FARC, controls lucrative coca fields that finance a terror 
campaign against the government. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf group 
kidnaps people to sustain its separatist dreams. In Sri Lanka, the violent 
Tamil Tigers have a fleet of stealthy vessels for smuggling contraband 
across the Indian Ocean. In Uzbekistan, heavily armed Islamic militants run 
a protection racket for opium traffickers. And before the fall of the 
Taliban, Al Qaeda was thought to profit from Afghanistan's thriving poppy 
trade.

Across the globe, the lines between international crime syndicates and 
terrorist organizations have become impossibly blurred. And recognition of 
that reality has spurred Washington to begin revamping its strategy for the 
war on terror.

Informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration are being enlisted to 
dig up intelligence on terrorist cells. F.B.I. agents are working with 
C.I.A. operatives to track down criminal as well as terrorist cells. A 
federally financed anti-drug campaign links drug use to supporting 
terrorism. And the military, long accustomed to preparing for battles 
against large conventional armies, is rushing to retrain its allies -- and 
itself -- to fight small conflicts against borderless groups that engage in 
crime even as they commit acts of terror.

"Everything we could do to put those people out of business would be good 
for our purposes," said Adm. Dennis Blair, the commander in chief of the 
United States Pacific Command.

Links to criminal activity have existed for as long as terrorists have been 
around. But analysts say those links have grown since the end of the cold 
war, when many insurgent groups lost their state sponsors and turned to 
crim inal enterprises to finance their activities.

Hence the more expansive approach, which on one level seems a triumph of 
common sense. If terrorists who threaten America buy their weapons, move 
their people and hide their money by hiring criminal syndicates, why not go 
after those subcontractors? And if insurgent groups are financing terror by 
assisting drug traffickers, why not go after both? It would be killing two 
birds with one stone, administration officials say.

"The illegal drug production that undermines America's culture also funds 
terror and erodes democracies across the globe," Asa Hutchinson, the drug 
enforcement administrator, said in a speech last week. "They all represent 
a clear and present danger to our national security."

But expanding the global war on terrorism to include a global war on crime 
has also raised sharp questions about whether the United States has the 
political support, know-how and resources to attack such a large and 
complicated set of new enemies. Many criminal syndicates have slyly evaded 
the law for decades, usually with the help of corrupt local officials. Can 
Americans suddenly expect to undermine those groups while also waging war 
in Afghanistan, trying to contain Saddam Hussein, keeping Israelis and 
Palestinians from each others' throats and sending troops to places like 
the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia?

On Capitol Hill, many lawmakers are not so sure. Some are already drawing 
analogies between Colombia -- where the administration wants to expand its 
military assistance for fighting drug traffickers to include fighting the 
FARC -- and Vietnam. "This could be a real quagmire," said Representative 
Ike Skelton, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. 
"And our commanders are already saying they don't have enough resources to 
meet their missions."

Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton administration official who is a director 
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan policy 
group in Washington, said Mr. Bush runs the risk of diluting his antiterror 
campaign by continuously expanding its targets. First there was Al Qaeda, 
then the axis of evil -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- and now there are 
drug traffickers and other criminal syndicates.

"If you expand the definition of what you're trying to do, you blur your 
mission and you start to lose support," Mr. Campbell said. "You start to 
have questions about what exactly are we concerned with. Is it Islamic 
fundamentalism? Is it states that are trying to acquire weapons of mass 
destruction? Is it states that support drug running and then maybe do 
things that aid terrorists? Each is important, but can all be the focus of 
your attention?"

STILL, analysts who have studied international criminal syndicates say the 
Bush administration is right to recognize the connections between criminal 
groups and terrorists, which they lump together under the rubric of 
"transnational threats."

The FARC, which lost funding from Cuba after the fall of the Soviet Union, 
is a good example of how the end of the cold war opened the way to more 
criminal activity. Having initially made money by "taxing" local drug 
dealers, the FARC began running drugs itself in the 1990's. Today, American 
officials say the group has become so corrupted by drug profits that its 
political goals have become secondary. Similar cycles of violence exist in 
the Balkans, Central Asia and Africa, where criminal enterprises -- from 
stealing oil to smuggling diamonds -- have sustained guerrilla warriors 
long after their political goals have faded.

But even as they applaud the Bush administration's new steps, analysts say 
the administration has yet to grapple with the long-term problems posed by 
stateless groups -- problems that could prove even more intractable than 
those presented by Iraq or North Korea.

Louise I. Shelley, director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption 
Center at American University in Washington, said criminal groups provide 
vital services and generate economic opportunity in many regions where 
government is weak. Attacking the criminal organizations without replacing 
their socially useful services could antagonize communities whose help 
America needs in fighting terrorists, she said.

"In some places, criminal groups provide food, provide gas, run the trade 
and mediate the conflicts," Dr. Shelley said. "They are de facto 
governments. But if you demonize them, you are not going to have the local 
community behind you."

Military analysts also said that traditional military approaches to 
fighting war must change if the United States is going to be effective in 
attacking borderless enemies. The concept of deterrence, for example, could 
quickly become obsolete if the enemy has no country, no capital, no 
standing army, no obvious "centers of gravity" worth destroying. But so 
far, the analysts say, the Pentagon hasn't quite figured out how to deter 
groups that seem to have nothing to lose. It is a problem common to terror 
groups and criminal bands, whether they engage in both crime and terror or not.

"Trying to fight these groups can be like trying to pin down a piece of 
mercury," said Thomas M. Sanderson, deputy director for the Transnational 
Threats Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 
"Yet we're still trying to box something that can't be boxed."
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