Alternative Insight
A Counter-productive Counter-terrorism
The misconceptions, misperceptions and misdirections of the United States administration's "war on terrorism" are sufficiently obvious to beg the question: "With whom is the U.S. allied in in the war on terrorism?Al-Qaeda is a bitter enemy of Shi'a Islam. The U.S. also contests Shi'a Islam.
Al-Qaeda leaders have linked the Shiite Muslims with the Crusaders, Zionists and Jews as their most bitter enemies. Deceased Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Al-Zarqawi, in a speech, said: "Days go by, and events follow one after the other. The battles are many, and the names used are varied. But the goal is one: a Crusader-Rafidite war against the Sunnis." Those Sunnis,who refuse to accept Shi'a Islam as being a valid form of Islam, use the word "rafida" as a derogatory term for Shiites. Al-Qaeda in Iraq has shown it means what it says:BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) September 17, 2007 -- "Dozens of Islamic militants loyal to al Qaeda attacked Shiite Muslim villages north of Baghdad around dawn Sunday, killing more than a dozen people, an Interior Ministry official said."
And who are the Shi'a? The principal Shi'a populations, outside of Iraq, are Iran and Hezbollah, both of whom are declared enemies of Al-Qaeda. The U.S. assists Sunni elements in Iraq to fight Shi'a elements in Iraq while the U.S. categorizes Hezbollah and Iran, neither of whom have committed terrorist acts against U.S. soil, as "terrorists." Although Iran and Hezbollah favor the U.S. war against Al-Qaeda terrorism, the U.S. supports Al-Qaeda in its battle with the Shiites and the Bush administration refuses to cooperate with the Shi'a elements in their battles with Al-Qaeda.
In Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine of the 1980's decade, the Christian and Muslim communities reconciled with one another and seemed to coexist successfully. The more rigid Islam was not a major force. Now, pincipally due to U.S. and Israel policies that are perceived by Muslims in the Middle East states as forms of coercion and oppression, Hezbollah, Hamas and rigid elements in Iraq have gained prestige and followings and have achieved positions of power. The U.S. incursion into Lebanon in the early 1980's, which included shelling of Lebanon's Shouf mountains, greatly strengthened an incipient Hezbollah. It is well known that Israel assisted Hamas as a counter-force to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The U.S. government combats the combatants it and its ally have strengthened.
The U.S. claims to be fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq so it won't have to fight Al-Qaeda in the U.S.
The truth of this remark is suspect, contrary to reality and contradictory. The limited Al-Qaeda elements who are in Iraq are only too glad to find an arena to contest the U.S. military. They certainly can't do it in the United States. The insurgents in Iraq, who have associated themselves with Al-Qaeda, are a miniscule part of a worldwide terrorist network. Reports have the U.S. authorities exaggerating the number of Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq and not clarifying that most of them have been eliminated.Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
Many Officials, However, Warn Of Its Resilience
Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post Staff Writers , October 15, 2007"The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command's operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said."
The U.S. contests nations who contest terrorists and assists nations that spawn terrorists.
Secular Syria has been fighting Radical Islam in its own northern provinces. The Syrian government is no more capable of preventing insurgents from entering Iraq through its porous border, which includes the northern provinces, than the Iraqis and U.S. military on the other side of the border are capable of intercepting them. The insurgents are spawned in Saudi Arabia and, although it is never publicized, can obviously enter Iraq by crossing the Saudi border. Why doesn't the U.S. vigorously contest the Saudi government's negligence in preventing the growth of terrorism instead of assisting the Saudis politically, commercially and militarily?
Although the U.S. has declared The Kurdistan Workers Party Kurdish (PKK) to be a terrorist organization, the PKK has been allowed to flourish in the new Iraq. It was only after Turkey indicated it would take extreme miltary actions against the PKK in Iraq that the U.S. protested to the central Iraq government to contain the PKK. Since the U.S.invasion of Iraq has essentially buffered the Kurdish region from central Iraq authority, this protest is superficial. The U.S. intervention in Iraq has strengthened the PKK and made it impossible for the central government to control PKK activities. An unanswered question - why hasn't the U.S. more vigorously protested the PKK activities to the Kurdish regional government?
The U.S. has given Al-Qaeda affiliates, who were previously constrained to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, a base to maneuver in Iraq.
Except for al-Ansar al-Islam, a radical Islamic group in Kurdish territory, which Saddam Hussein fought, Saddam Hussein's Iraq contained no Al-Qaeda fighters. Following the overthrow of one of Al-Qaeda's principal antagonists, Al-Qaeda members who were unwelcome in Pakistan fled to Iraq. Many radical Islamic terrorists training in Saudi Arabia found a place to test their training in Iraq. The results of the U.S. invasion of the Arab state is that the U.S. has suffered casualties exceeding the 9/11 terrorist attack, terrorists have found another mission and terrorists, who had been contained, have been exported from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to the anarchic Iraq battlegrounds.The U.S. is not effectively striking Al-Qaeda at its many sources.
U.S. forces are covertly operating around the globe; with appearances in Philippines and Somalia. Nevertheless, Osama bin Laden is still free, Radical Islam insurgents are apparent in many Muslim nations and western Europe has had terrorist attacks. The U.S. is focused on Iraq where it uses a specious analogy that its war in the fertile crescent is a war against terrorism rather than against those who oppose U.S. occupation.
Richard Clarke, the White House official who investigated and refuted reports that Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger, qualified the war on terrorism:"We're not engaged in a war on terrorism, a war against a tactic. We're not concerned here with all terrorist groups. The enemy consists of about 100,000 members of about 14 jihadist groups, loosely linked to al Qaeda and representing a virulent strain of Islam."
The U.S. policies are creating more terrorists.
It's ingenuous to believe that U.S. favoritism to Israel and to corrupt dictators in the Arab world, coupled with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have not created more terrorists. Each Muslim death attributed to a U.S. bullet generates more Islamic terrorists. Radical Islam is prominent in battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan; flooding Europe, and considered to be fighting in Iraq, Philippines, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Yeman, Thailand, Malaysia and Somalia.Richard Clarke has said it succinctly.
War against terror is a failure, ex-White House official says.
Richard Clarke tells Berkeley audience U.S. still isn't safe
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer, September 8, 2004"The Bush administration has bungled the war on terrorism, doing little to provide security at home while breeding legions of new enemies abroad, the government's former anti-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, told a large Berkeley audience Tuesday night."
The counter-productive counter-terrorism
The U.S. is fighting a war, but principally against Iraq insurgents and with an uncoordinated focus on international terrorism. The results of the U.S. counter-terrorism policies have beenA orop for a U.S. economy, which is now faltering due to credit restraints;.
An unending war in Iraq with loss of many U.S. lives:
A continuous war in Afghanistan with poppy production at an all time high:
A Middle East policy that never resolves the Israel/Palestinian conflict;
An exodus of Iraqis from their home country, which is creating havoc in Middle East nations;
A contentious Turkey that is ready to war against Kurdish militancy;
An increased conflict between the U.S. and Iran;
A shift by Al-Qaeda to terrorist attacks in Europe;
A renewal of Fighting in Somalia where radical Islamists gained control for a short time;
An increasing conflict in Pakistan, where Radical Islam is physically contesting the government;
A turmoil in Lebanon that will not be resolved until other Middle East crises are resolved..The United States administration promotes the concept of preventing terrorism on U.S. soil by fighting terrorism in Iraq. The opposite is true - the U.S. is promoting terrorism throughout the world by fighting in Iraq. Counter-productive policies guide the United States administration's "war on terrorism." Being counter-productive creates an effect opposite to desired - it supports the antagonist and, in this case, directly allies the U.S. with its own declared enemy in the war on terrorism?
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october, 2007HOME PAGE MAIN PAGE 
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