Perceived US Cowardice Fuels Terrorism, Former CIA Head Declares
By Kathleen Rhodes
CNSNews.com Correspondent
February 09, 2005
(CNSNews.com) - The increased frequency with which Middle Eastern terrorists target Americans and U.S. installations is due in part to the terrorists' continued perception that America acts cowardly when under attack, according to former Central Intelligence Agency director R. James Woolsey.
Woolsey, who addressed students and reporters at George Washington University Tuesday, said America's reaction to the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran and the deaths of 241 U.S. marines in 1983 are examples of why that perception endures.
With President Jimmy Carter trying to negotiate the hostages' release in 1979 and 1980, the reaction of the average American was to "tie yellow ribbons around trees," Woolsey said. A few years later, when Hezbollah terrorists blew up the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, Americans "ran," he added.
Throughout the 1980s, as Americans like Leon Klinghoffer on the cruise ship Achille Lauro were killed and others were kidnapped in Lebanon, "what did the Americans do? They sent the lawyers," Woolsey said.
The George H. W. Bush administration in 1991, after ending combat in the first Persian Gulf War, encouraged [Iraqi] Kurds and Shia to rebel, then stopped and "watched the Kurds and Shia be massacred" by forces loyal to Saddam Hussein, who had been left in power, Woolsey said.
American cowardice was also perceived when the United States pulled out of Somalia in 1993 after American soldiers on a humanitarian mission were ambushed by terrorists in Mogadishu, according to Woolsey. The incident in Somalia, he said, helped solidify the view among terrorists, that "if bloodied, [the United States] will run."
Woolsey lumped America's current Middle Eastern enemies into three categories: "fascists," which he said include Saddam Hussein's Baath Party loyalists in Iraq; Shia "Islamists," which include the mullahs in Iran; and Sunni "Islamists," which include al Qaeda and the Wahabbi sect of Saudi Arabia.
The term "Islamist," Woolsey said, "Connotes a totalitarian movement masquerading as a religion."
Woolsey drew parallels to World War II, comparing the motives of Islamist terrorists to those of Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan.
"In a certain sense, they have come after us for the same reason that Hitler decided to declare war on us after Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor. He knew ultimately he was going to lose unless he took us out," Woolsey explained. "And I think it's the underlying reason that these three totalitarian movements in the Middle East all feel that way about us -- pretty much the same reason that Hitler [did]."
The Japanese, like al Qaeda, attacked the United States in part because they considered the U.S. cowardly and unlikely to react forcefully. "Based on what we were doing in the 1920s and 1930s ... the Japanese in the 1940s thought pretty much the same thing about us, because our behavior had certain parallels," to the more recent period, Woolsey said.
"I think you have to admit that [al Qaeda] had some basis for the assessment that I've just described, just as the Japanese had some basis for the assessment that they made of us in the beginning of the 1940s."
Woolsey said he believes the conflict with Islamism and Baathism is neither a recent nor a short-term phenomenon. "What's new is not the war. What's new is not our being attacked. What's new is we noticed. We finally decided after 9-11 that we would be at war too." He added that the U.S. must "stay awake" in order to prevent future attacks. |
