In the commentary on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the news and infotainment media have predictably framed the discussion by the question of how successful the CIA and the military have been in destroying al Qaeda. Absent from the torrent of opinion and analysis was any mention of how the U.S. military occupation of Muslim lands and wars that continue to kill Muslim civilians fuel jihadist sentiment that will keep the threat of terrorism high for many years to come.
The failure to have that discussion is not an accident. In December 2007, at a conference in Washington, D.C. on al Qaeda, former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism Daniel Benjamin offered a laundry list of things the United States could do to reduce the threat from al Qaeda. But he said nothing about the most important thing to be done: pledging to the Islamic world that the United States would pull its military forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq and end its warfare against those in Islamic countries resisting U.S. military presence.
During the coffee break, I asked him whether that item shouldn’t have been on his list. “You’re right,” he answered. And then he added, “But we can’t do that.”
"Miks mitte," küsisin ma.
"Sest," ütles ta, "peaksime nendes sõdades hukkunud sõdurite perekondadele ütlema, et nende lähedased surid asjata."
Tema seletus oli ilmselgelt võlts. Kuid nõustudes, et Ameerika jätkuvad sõjad suurendavad tegelikult terrorismi ohtu USA vastu, peegeldas Benjamin lihtsalt järeldusi, milleni luure- ja terrorismivastase võitluse kogukonnad olid juba jõudnud.
National Intelligence Estimate on "Globaalse terrorismi suundumused" issued in April 2006 concluded that the war in Iraq was “breeding deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim World and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” It found that “activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.” And in a prophetic warning, it said “the operational threat from self-radicalized cells will grow in importance…particularly abroad but also at home.”
Given the way intelligence assessments get watered down as they ascend the hierarchy of officials, these were remarkably alarming conclusions about the peril that U.S. occupation of Iraq posed to the United States. And that alarm was shared by at least some counter-terrorism officials as well. Robert Grenier, who had been head of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center in 2005-06, was quoted in the July 25, 2007 Los Angeles Times as saying the war “has convinced many Muslims that the United States is the enemy of Islam and is attacking Muslims, and they have become jihadists as a result of their experience in Iraq.”
As the war in Iraq wound down, the U.S. war in Afghanistan — especially the war being waged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) — was generating more hatred for the United States. As JSOC scaled up its “night raids” in Afghanistan, it never got the right person in more than 50 percent of the raids, as even senior commanders in JSOC hiljuti tunnistas EuroopaWashington Post. That indicated that a very large proportion of those killed and detained were innocent civilians. Not surprisingly, the populations of entire districts and provinces were enraged by those raids.
Kui maamunal on üks koht, kus on ilmselgelt irratsionaalne meessoost elanikkonna pikaajaline vastandumine, siis on see Afganistani ja Pakistani piiril puštu piirkond, kus on hõimukultuur, kus austatakse ja makstakse kätte pere ja sõprade tapmise eest. .
Meanwhile, after fleeing from Afghanistan to Pakistan in 2001, al Qaeda had rebuilt a large network of Pashtun militants in the Pashtun northwest. As the murdered Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad recounted in Al-Qaeda ja Talibani sees, President Pervez Musharraf, under pressure from Washington, began in 2003 to use the Pakistani army to try to destroy the remnants of al Qaeda by force with helicopter strikes and ground forces. But instead of crushing al Qaeda, those operations further radicalized the population of those al Qaeda base areas, by convincing them that the Pakistani government and army was merely a tool of U.S. control.
Bushi administratsioon, kes oli pettunud Musharrafi suutmatusest al Qaeda lõpule viia ja Talibani mässuliste kiirest tõusust Afganistanis, käivitas droonisõja. tappis palju tsiviilisikuid in northwest Pakistan. An opinion survey by Uus Ameerika sihtasutus in the region last year found that 77 percent believed the real purpose of the U.S. “war on terror” is to “weaken and divide the Muslim world” and to “ensure American domination.” And more than two-thirds of the entire population of Pakistan view the United States as the enemy, not as a friend, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
CIA ning Bushi ja Obama administratsioonid mõistsid, et droonirünnakud ei saa kunagi lõpetada terroriplaanide ohtu Pakistanis, nagu ametist lahkuv CIA direktor Michael Hayden oli Bob Woodwardi sõnul ametisse astuvale presidendile öelnud.Obama sõjad. And if the Obama administration didn’t understand then that the drone war was stoking popular anger at the government and the United States, it certainly does now. Former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair on märkinud et "viha Ameerika vastu kasvab Pakistanis" droonilöökide tõttu.
Ometi jätkuvad öised reidid ja droonirünnakud, justkui ei muudaks poliitikakujundajate jaoks laialdase ja intensiivse viha oht nendes riikides USA vastu.
Seda mõistatust saab mõista ainult ühel viisil: "terrorismivastases sõjas" on võitjad ja kaotajad. Tavalised ameeriklased on selgelt kaotajad ning võitjad on sõjaväe institutsioonid ja juhid, Pentagon ja CIA ning nende poliitilised ja korporatiivsed liitlased. Nad on kokkuvarisevas majanduses ja ühiskonnas kogunud tohutult ressursse ja jõudu.
They are not going to do anything about the increased risk to Americans from the hatred their wars have provoked until they are forced to do so by a combination of resistance from people within those countries and an unprecedented rebellion by millions of Americans. It’s long past time to start organizing that rebellion.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam," was published in 2006.
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