<a perfect breeding ground for Al Qaida>
I supported Regime Change in Afghanistan, because they were allowing Safe Haven to Al Queda. There aren't any governments, now, that officially allow Al Queda to operate on their soil. But Al Queda isn't gone. Al Queda survives, in places where the governments officialy are anti-terrorist, but tacitly allow recruiting, training, money collection, etc.
More importantly, the conditions that create recruits and sympathy for Al Queda, they aren't gone, either. After reading a variety of Muslim writings, I've come to the conclusion that it is humiliation, not poverty, that is the root cause of Islamic terrorism. Wealthy elites, middle classes, they support Islamic terrorism to at least the same degree as those in abject poverty. And they support terrorism, to the degree they feel their homeland is being controlled by foreigners.
What we have done, in Iraq, is to humiliate that nation, and to a larger extent the entire Arab "nation". We have created, in Iraq, "a perfect breeding ground for Al Queda". At most, Saddam Hussain had an arms-length alliance of convenience with Al Queda. And there isn't much evidence even, of that. Our army is going to leave Saudi Arabia, and then get kicked out of Iraq the same way the Israelis got kicked out of Lebanon, and then where will we be?
Again, I just don't see how our national interests are furthered by this. |
