Comments Posted By biwah
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DOES CONFRONTING TERRORISM MAKE IT WORSE?
from the WaPo article:
"a really big hole" in the U.S. strategy, a second counterterrorism official said, "is that we focus on the terrorists and very little on how they are created.
Your skepticism about other course we could have taken is legit, but then fail to deal with the fact that AQ and similar groups were at the fringe of the Arab world, and now they are a driving force. That was the price of ignoring how terrorists are created or, as you denigrate it, "root causes". But this isn't the root causes of late sixties anti-poverty program you're sneering about.
What's more, it is extremely hard to envision the War ending without one or more of them controlling the resulting government, and if the U.S. is not controlling that government, it is unimaginable. The fiction that the Iraq police/military will put the Mahdi Army back in the bottle is costing us so, so dearly.
Comment Posted By biwah On 24.09.2006 @ 10:11
I am not disputing the conclusions in this leaked report. I am resisting the implications that some would draw from it; that if only we had not confronted the jihadists or worked to solve the root causes of terrorism, none of this would be true today.
I think you acknowlege the thrust of the report and make a fair argument. However, you go on to conflate the report's finding that the Iraq War spawned many jihadi recruits, with the general liberal "root causes" dogma. They are very different.
what they seek, we cannot give them.
Most of "them" seek stability and prosperity. You are right to point out that at this point, we cannot bestow these. But the War is the biggest reason that we do not now have the option of a gradual economic & cultural infiltration of these extremist societies. It would have taken a generation, but so will this war. It is interesating that the neocons derived so much inspiration from the cold war, when it was a military standoff, coupled with culutral perestroika and our superior economic system, that won it for us.
Like many right wing commentators you confuse any finding that the War will come back on us with a "blame America" view. Politics notwithstanding, we're past the point where blame even matters.
Comment Posted By biwah On 24.09.2006 @ 09:59
