By Larry C Johnson
George Bush got it partially right yesterday (Thursday, September 22) when he said that mistakes made by three of his predecessors, including the Reagan administration, had emboldened terrorists and helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks. Unfortunately he ignored the role his own actions have played in making terrorism worse and pushing the Middle East to the brink of a new war. Instead, the President blindly insisted that he is taking America on the right path in Iraq to confront the threat of terrorism. On that point he is wrong; dead wrong.
Why is he wrong? The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is doing the exact opposite of what Bush says U.S. policy was supposed to achieve:
- Instead of reducing terrorism, Islamic terrorism is spreading dramatically.
- Instead of winning new supporters for democracy, the war in Iraq is spurring the recruitment and training radical jihadists.
- Instead of creating a “City on the Hill” that other nations in the Middle East will emulate, Iraq is fissuring and setting the stage for a regional ethnic and religious civil war.
Rising Terrorism
The American-led invasion of Iraq has produced unprecedented surge in terrorist attacks that kill and wound people. Data collected by the Central Intelligence Agency, which goes back to 1985, shows that the number of international terrorist attacks declined steadily from 1987 until 2002. 2003, however, was a watershed moment. The total number of attacks (208) increased slightly over the previous year. However, 80% of those attacks involved someone being killed or wounded. The perpetrators of most of those violent attacks were radical Islamists.
In 2004 the terrorist numbers went thru the roof (and the Bush Administration tried to cover this up). The number of significant terrorist attacks (i.e., an attack in which someone is killed, wounded or kidnapped or there is damage in excess of $10,000) surged from 175 to almost 700. These numbers are without historical precedent. In other words, we have never had a time (since the CIA started keeping the statistics in 1968) that was this high. While a large number of these attacks occurred in Iraq, Iraq did not account for the majority of the deadly events.
Building the Next Generation of Terrorists
The insurgency is a complicated mix of groups foreign and domestic, but foreigners do not make up the bulk. Nonetheless, the foreign influence is growing and the U.S. presence in Iraq is serving to radicalize Islamic youth that previously were willing to spend their time playing soccer and listen to Western music.
How do I know? Foreign officials with the job of tracking and fighting aspiring terrorists tell me so. During the last year I have provided briefings on terrorist trends to senior leaders from Pakistan, Kuwait, Yemen, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, and Mali. Although they come from different countries they convey the same message—what the hell are you doing?
Our friends and allies naively believe that we have a plan and know what we are doing. Nonetheless, they also tell me that just as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 created Bin Laden and his ilk that our invasion of Iraq is creating the next generation of terrorists. They see that their societies are becoming more anti-U.S. than pro. They see a new generation of idealistic youth falling under the conviction that God (Allah) is calling them to fight the infidel. They are genuinely afraid that we have lit a fuze on a bomb that will detonate in the next few years unless we demonstrate we are in control.
A cultural side note. The countries in the Middle East genuinely believe that we are encouraging and cultivating the suicide bombers and the break up of Iraq. Why? Because they cannot conceive that a country as large and powerful as the United States could be impotent to deal with this threat. Instead, they are convinced that we have a secret plan we are not sharing with them. They believe that our sincere goal is to create chaos and control the oil resources. They look at me with disbelief and bewilderment when I tell them there is no secret plan and we are as incompetent as they fear.
BELOW: Yugoslavia on Crack
Yugoslavia on Crack
Today’s New York Times reported that Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war. This is not the wild ravings of a crazy man. This is a cold, honest assessment from someone who really believes he is still a friend of the United States.
Our actions are confusing the hell out of our friends. They look at Iran, who has been the largest most prolific sponsor of terrorism since 1980, expand its influence among the Iraqi shia with our help. The Iranians attacked us, Saddam didn’t, yet we are helping the Iranians (at least from our friends’ perspective). The Saudis (and others) scratch their heads as they watch us give the shia militia carte blanche to establish their power. The Saudis understand that the Shia are keen on solidifying their power. They wonder why we don’t see this.
What the Saudis and the Kuwaitis and the Omanis and the Abu Dhabis understand is that the Sunni tribes will go to any length to defend themselves and their families from the corruption represented by Shia rule. Think for a moment what a small town in Texas, habitually under the control of Southern Baptists, would do if a group of Catholics or Hasidic Jews moved into town and took control of the political process. While an incomplete analogy, this scenario offers a taste of what is in store for Iraq.
Unlike the international intervention in Yugoslavia, there is not a firm international consensus to fight against the fragmentation of the Iraqi society. Prince Faisal, I fear, is a prophet. In the coming years the United States may face the unsavory prospect of actually having to invade Saudi Arabia to secure and protect its access to oil. In the meantime, the U.S. presence in Iraq is provoking terrorism and becoming a rallying point for our enemies.
Before George Bush tries to pick the splinter out of the eyes of his father, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan, he may want to spend some time removing the huge beam lodged in his iris.
Larry C. Johnson
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This is not the wild ravings of a crazy man. This is a cold, honest assessment from someone who really believes he is still a friend of the United States.
Our actions are confusing the hell out of our friends. …
Right on. Bush is incapable of being president and it seems — I just have a feeling — that Bush’s stalwarts such as Rumsfeld, Cheney, Condi Rice, et al. — are going to scatter away from him like cockroaches exposed to a kitchen light.
And he’ll be more alone in his destruction. And we’ll be stuck with being his victims.
This is truly insane.
Speaking of people he’s briefed in the MidEast, Larry Johnson says;
This has been clear from the beginning. On Sept 13, 2001, after hearing Saddam’s name invoked on a radio show, it was clear as a bell that we’d attack Iraq as the first step towards a more ambitions attempt to gain control of the entire petroleum rich region, all done under the guise of fighting Islamic terrorists.
And nothing at all has happened since that time to change my perspective. I see no evidence whatsoever that this is not the goal of the Bush regime. Bush himself doesn’t know it because he’s too stupid and too emotionally and mentally disturbed, but Cheney and his neocon pals, (the guys running Bush and his regime), are pursuing exactly this plan for domination in the MiddleEast.
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USA War Room 1976-2005 «« click on photo – 30 years history »»
President Bush receives a briefing on national policy issues from VP Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers, U.S. Air Force, at the Pentagon.AP Photo/Department of Defense, Tech. Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald, U.S. Air Force
Rather than being a tragic reminder of past Cold War conflicts, confined to a remote and barbarous country, Angola’s present condition is an example of the handiwork of men like Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, who strenuously lobbied for the removal of Congressional barriers on arming anti-government forces in the mid-1970s, Dick Cheney, a tireless supporter of UNITA, and George Bush senior, who both as president and head of the CIA prosecuted the war.
Angola–where 3.5 million people, a third of the population, have fled from their homes, where there are 86,000 disabled land mine victims and where a child dies of a preventable disease every three minutes–is the shape of things to come in many other countries if the right wing clique that currently dominates U.S. politics has its way.
In claiming that the Angolan war was the result of super-power rivalry, the U.S. press is echoing the words of Henry Kissinger. As Secretary of State he repeatedly claimed that the U.S. was forced to intervene in Angola because the Soviet Union was already providing military aid to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the form of Cuban troops. Recently released documents demonstrate that this was untrue and that Kissinger lied to Congress in order to justify U.S. intervention.
Far from the war in Angola being the result of efforts to curtail Soviet ambitions, the new documents released by the National Security archive reveal that the Kremlin was reluctant to become involved in Angola. The Stalinist bureaucracy had no desire to encourage popular revolutionary movements that might threaten their own hold on power. It did not initiate a proxy war, but rather responded to U.S. moves.
Conflicting Missions – Henry Kissinger
Secret Cuban Documents on History of Africa Involvement
Africa’s “Terrorist”
The United States bears some blame for Angola’s brutal civil war because Savimbi was long the darling of American right-wing, conservative politicians and the CIA. Some fifteen years ago, President Ronald Reagan invited Savimbi to the White House and hailed him a “freedom fighter” for his efforts to oust dos Santos and the leftist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA)–the party that has ruled Angola since its independence in 1975.
A. Membe at Peace Talks in The Hague
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“Before George Bush tries to pick the splinter out of the eyes of his father, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan, he may want to spend some time removing the huge beam lodged in his iris. “
This says it all Larry. That and that we have noe plan, secret or otherwise. How long before our “frinds” throw in the towel and turn against us too?
Sorry for all the typos …must.go.to.bed.
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The US themselves undercut UN weapons embargo to former Yugoslavian states in the nineties, by coordinating through Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia weapons and arms shipment to the Bosnian Muslims.
Try Google for the “Croatian pipeline”.
This policy helped to place an Al-Qaeda cel with a strong foothold in the region, the remnants are still in place, even after an attempt to dismantle it after 9/11.
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Thanks Larry!
A cultural side note. The countries in the Middle East genuinely believe that we are encouraging and cultivating the suicide bombers and the break up of Iraq. Why? Because they cannot conceive that a country as large and powerful as the United States could be impotent to deal with this threat. Instead, they are convinced that we have a secret plan we are not sharing with them. They believe that our sincere goal is to create chaos and control the oil resources. They look at me with disbelief and bewilderment when I tell them there is no secret plan and we are as incompetent as they fear.
This diary of yours kind of justifies the direction my last diary was going in.
The only problem is I am not sure whether I should worry more about the thought of bushies being this incompetent OR if it wasn’t better for us to think we have leaders that are trying to push a secret plan that is failing.
No matter how we got here, we are now in a very dangerous place because of their failures. And our “allies” are freaking about it all.