Another fatal day in the 'war on terror'

[cal04]

Patrick Cockburn, the award-winning journalist and author, has reported extensively from Iraq, Afghanistan and Jordan. Here, he explains how the 'war on terror' has fuelled resentment of the West and brought new levels of death and destruction

(snip)
I have spent most of my time since 2001 in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reason for the rise of radical Islam is foreign occupation. Iraq had a secular tradition. Fanatical Islamic groups made little headway under Saddam Hussein not only because he persecuted them but because they had little popular support.

But the five million-strong Sunni community in Iraq almost entirely supported armed resistance to the US occupation. Fanatical Islamic groups were for the first time operating in a friendly environment.

At one moment in the past year the many Sunni insurgent groups debated whether they should try to hammer out a common platform. They eventually decided that their differences were too deep for unity on most issues but they were all agreed on opposition to the occupation and they concluded this was sufficient to hold them together.


(snip)
The real reason of the increasing violence in the Middle East is the return to imperial control and foreign occupation half a century after the European colonial empires were broken up. This is the fuel for Islamic militancy. This is why fanatical but isolated Islamic groups can suddenly win broader support. Governments allied to the US and Britain have no legitimacy. The attempts by America and Britain to crush Islamic militancy across the Middle East are making sure it will become stronger.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1362708.ece

[knowbody0]

1. AmeriKa's foreign policy

translated: OUR oil under their sand.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Plus the other cost

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182