War on terror creating more problems

LONDON: The combined efforts of the UK and the US to tackle the war on terror are creating more problems than they are solving, a highly critical report said on Monday. Attacks on the scale of September 11 in New York and July 7 in London are more, rather than less, likely under current government policies.

The report, entitled ‘Global Responses to Global Threats: Sustainable Security for the 21st Century,’ was compiled over an 18-month period by the independent think tank, the Oxford Research Group. It said threats such as scarcity of natural resources, climate change, inequality of trade and the nuclear armament of “rogue” states were more fundamental.

The authors wrote that the policy is a “deeply flawed strategy consuming hundreds of billions of dollars, creating more recruits and supporters of terrorism than it defeats, and is diverting attention from threats to security that are far more serious, lasting and destructive than that of international terrorism.”