Britain's defense secretary says international terror has the potential to become civilization's most dangerous enemy because al-Qaida fighters have access to destructive modern technology.Because of that, Secretary John Reid suggested Wednesday night, international law, including the Geneva Conventions that set the laws of war, should be strengthened and expanded, not abandoned.
As important as ideological and cultural aspects are to the conflict, Reid said, "the nature of the enemy and its tactics and philosophy" lead to "the utter lack of constraint. Legal, moral, conventional self-discipline."
Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, Reid said terrorists of the 20th century, such as the Nazis, similarly ignored society's norms.
"But what is new is the combination of wholesale license in the intention side and the use of indiscriminate violence allied to modern technological capacity and capability, at least potentially," he said.
Reid called al-Qaida and other terrorist groups "absolutely a threat which is potentially, I think, greater than any we have ever faced."
"While the evil intent was there in previous generations, constrained by relative inefficiency in technology," Reid said, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have "potential access to modern destructive capacity (of) unimaginable scale in the form of chemical, biological and radiological weapons."
Reid said a major tactic of the al-Qaida network is to use the West's system as a weapon of war by counting on the press' freedom to wear down the civilian support for the fight.
"There would be no freedom of speech in a society ruled by al-Qaida," Reid said. "In this life-and-death struggle, they want both their hands free and ours tied behind our back."
On Iraq, Reid said other countries in the region _ Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey _ need to become involved in the country's recovery.
"The ultimate solution in that area would be to ensure that these countries of the region itself play an important role," Reid said.