Just read the August 1st issue of The New Yorker, and it has a lot of interesting articles, including John Cassidy's profile of Republican activist Grover Norquist. Since I once rented office space from Grover, I couldn't stop reading the article.
The best reason to read this issue, however, is Philip Gourevitch's story on the Tamil Tiger movement in Sri Lanka--in the news today because of the state of emergency declared after yesterday's assassination of Sri Lanka's foreign minister. Gourevitch predicted a rise in violence, it seems due to fights over control of Tsunami aid money that the West insists go to the Tamils over objections of the Sri Lankan government. Gourevitch is more sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers than most people we met when we were tourists in Sri Lanka (it killed the beach resort and elephant orphanage businesss). He does point out that they used suicide bombers and other techniques now used by Al Qaeda, were trained in Lebanon, and supported by the Indian Government (ironically, Tamil Tigers killed Indira Gandhi). Gourevitch is too soft on the Tamil Tigers and their supporters.
Not gone into at length is the role of big powers in supporting terrorists, in this case. Gourevitch doesn't emphasize the fact that when India dropped support for the Tamil Tiger movement, things began to calm down--until now, as Western Tsunami aid (no doubt some from US taxpayers), funneled to the Tigers in Tiger controlled areas via NGOs, appears to be fueling Tamil Tiger terrorism once more.
IMHO A comprehensive approach to fighting terror may need to include a more effective policy to prevent humanitarian NGOs from supporting terrorists either directly or indirectly.
