Blandbutmarvellous, the U.S. State Dept. MIGHT be correct in its claims of a reduced number of worldwide terrorist attacks; or it might not be. I'm a little suspicious of any information from the state dept. or, in fact, any branch of the Bush-controlled government. My skepticism is based upon the fabrication of recent pronouncements concerning the cost of the medicare bill, the certainty of the existence of wmds in Iraq, the cost estimates of the Iraqi occupation, and other instances where the claims made are not only wrong, they are clearly manipulated for political purposes. This "terrorism is reduced" claim is central to the election and I believe we're naive if we don't understand that the White House politicians placed great pressure on the "wording" of the report and its conclusions.
Anyone in government can, of course, say anything they want on this subject. I find it's helpful to read carefully to determine if there are any biases revealed in an author's words. I note that your article states that, "[t]he Afghanistan and Iraq phases have overthrown regimes that supported terrorism, and the intelligence gathered during both phases has identified more terrorist cells and plots."
While that statement is clearly true for Afghanistan, it is just as clearly an overstatement with respect to Iraq. We have NOT found any strong terrorist connection between Hussein's Iraq and terrorism. In fact the connection is so tenuous that those who desperately try to make that nexus have to resort to including the Al Answar terrorist group that operated in the far north IN DEFIANCE OF SADDAM.
The truth is that Saddam Hussein was a mortal enemy of radical Islam and of the terrorists. He executed anyone who was found to be a Wahabi believer and he was basically engaged in killing many of the same kinds of people we are now killing ourselves.
Assuming for the sake of argument, however, that the number of attacks has decreased, do the authors conclusions that our actions in Afghanistan AND Iraq have had a beneficial effect make any sense?
I think it's clear that our invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent removal of a Taliban-sponsored sanctuary for the Al Queda led terrorists there DID have both short-term and long-term positive effects on reducing terrorism. Those actions made a statement to other nations that we meant what we said regarding their support of terrorism and, additionally, it directly disrupted the terrorist.
There were few countervailing repercussions. There was little "recruitment" advantage to the terrorists resulting from our invasion since it was clearly a self-defense action and since there was a sound basis for the Arab world to believe that the Afghani people had fought with us and had accomplished most of the "victory" over the Taliban. The Afghans had, in short, stepped up to the plate, risked their lives and won the game with THEIR will and blood, and our help.
Can we really say the same about our invasion of Iraq? There was no compelling "self-defense" rationale for invading Iraq. There was no Iraqi led assault on Saddam Hussein's government. There was no Iraqi blood shed to overturn Saddam; in fact all of the Iraqi blood was shed in resisting our invasion. There was no real threat to America from Iraq's weaponry. There had been no real Iraqi support of anti-American terrorism. All of the Iraqi efforts opposing the U.S. were directed at opposing the "no-fly" zones that were imposed over its sovereign air space.
Iraq, therefor, as opposed to Afghanistan, is a terrorist recruiter's answer to a prayer. A hugely superior military power attacks a small country that has little ability to defend itsef and the attack is based on false and exaggerated claims. The battles are so one-sided that there is no glory for the victor; only pity for the valiant, vanquished people.
The invader/occupier carefully protects the oil ministry and allows the looting of the antiquities in the Iraqi Museums, as well as the widespread looting of Iraqi homes.
The images of bloody and dead women and children are imprinted on Arab minds everywhere. The invader talks about a "generations long" occupation. The invader is resisted by outgunned and committed resistance fighters from inside Iraq and they are aided by Arab foreign fighters determined to resist the indidels who wear uniforms and impose their rules on an unwilling and many times uncooperative population.
All the while the invader warns "you must accept "demcratic rule," our view of a bill of rights, minority protections, rights for women, and we will not take no for an answer." The religious leaders cautiously resist and then some step forward and recklessly resist.
A whole generation of Arab/Muslim children are so outraged that they dance with joy and chant "death to America" whenever young American soldiers are ambushed and killed. Money flows in from all over from those who want to "do their part" to help the Iraqi insurgents and those who resist the "great, evil power".
It is, by anyone's definition who is not blinded by Rumsfeldian hobble-gobble, a total, bed-soaking WET DREAM for a terrorist, or for a terrorist sympathizer.
We've done many good things to fight terrorism. Probably the most important thing we've done is to enlist the world's law enforcement and intelligence service's help in this endeavor. That means we've not only asked for their help, we've also opened the books and given them our own intelligence and resources in this fight. That's clearly had a good effect. If we'd spent the hundreds of billions we've spent in Iraq and if we'd used the human resources we're using in Iraq, I expect we'd have even more successes.
To be truly successful, however, we must reduce the number of terrorist supporters and we must resist the passion with which they support terrorism. We've done ourselves a generation worth of severe damage in that respect by our costly and unjust invasion of a Muslim, sovereign nation that did not ask for our help and did not threaten our safety.
Those are, therefor, the reasons I stand by my statement that:
"The Bush course of using and threatening massive military force against nations is counterproductive. Ask yourself this question; if we controlled the governments of every Muslim/Arab nation in the world would we still have an Islamic terrorist problem? Of course we would, and it would be fueled by tremendous outrage.
This isn't the good old days of imperialism when a country could force it's will on another country and the only weapons available to those in the occupied country were swords and clubs. Today there is travel, technology and weaponry that allow those who have the will to strike anywhere and to strike deeply. The rules have, therefor, changed and the powerless are no longer impotent."
Many of our best minds with knowledge of the region have acknowledged that modern terrorism does not need the support or sponsorship of nations; it survives and thrives in small cells when supported by the Muslim populations. What it does need is the support of those populations. Attacking Muslim nations with massive military force, occupying them, and bullying them will help, not hurt, the cause of terrorists for this and the next generation.
But hey, don't believe your logic and common sense, believe those who tell you what you'd rather believe. In fact, don't even believe the images you see on the tube, after all it's a "handful of thugs, Saddam lovers and foreign terrorists who've brought the American forces to a dead stop in Iraq and they're all dying there rather than here, right? |
