Juan Cole: "The time of revenge has come"

[BurtWorm]

Juan Cole analyzes the communiqué of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe, the group claiming responsibility for the attacks in London and suggests that the group is probably a cell of European-based Muslims or Arabs who take their cues from Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian ally of bin Laden's.

http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/08/blowback/print.html

Blowback from Bush and Blair's incompetently pursued war on terror has hit London. When will the U.S. figure out how to fight smart?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole

...

If the communiqué of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe proves authentic, the London bombings are the second major instance of terrorism in Europe directly related to the Iraq war. In March of 2004, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (French acronym: GICM) launched a massive attack on trains in Madrid in order to punish Spain for its participation in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, following on their bombing of Casablanca the previous year.

From the point of view of a serious counterinsurgency campaign against al-Qaida, Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions all along the line. He decided to "unleash" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rather than pressing for Israeli-Palestinian peace and an end to Israeli occupation of the territories it captured in 1967. Rather than extinguishing this most incendiary issue for Arabs and Muslims, he poured gasoline on it. His strategy in response to Sept. 11 was to fight the Afghanistan War on the cheap. By failing to commit American ground troops in Tora Bora, he allowed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape. He reneged on promises to rebuild Afghanistan and prevent the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaida there, thus prolonging the U.S. and NATO military presence indefinitely. He then diverted most American military and reconstruction resources into an illegal war on Iraq. That war may have been doomed from the beginning, but Bush's refusal to line up international support, and his administration's criminal lack of planning for the postwar period, made failure inevitable.

Conservative commentators argue that Iraq is a "fly trap" for Muslim terrorists. It makes much more sense to think of it as bin Laden's fly trap for Western troops. There, jihadis can kill them (making the point that they are not invulnerable), and can provoke reprisals against Iraqi civilians that defame the West in the Muslim world. After Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, many Muslims felt that Bin Laden's dire warnings to them that the United States wanted to occupy their countries, rape their women, humiliate their men, and steal their assets had been vindicated.

...

The global anti-insurgency battle against al-Qaida must be fought smarter if the West is to win. To criminal investigations and surveillance must be added a wiser set of foreign policies. Long-term Western military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not going to be acceptable to many in the Muslim world. U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah created powerful new symbols of Muslim humiliation that the jihadis who sympathize with al-Qaida can use to recruit a new generation of terrorists. The U.S. must act as an honest broker in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Bush and Blair must urgently find a credible exit strategy from Iraq that can extricate the West from bin Laden's fly trap.

...

[The Magistrate]

1. Prof. Cole's Analysis Seems Acute, Sir

[Straight Shooter]

2. "criminal lack of planning"

Juan Cole gets it.

I remember arguing with a friend years ago, "We can't just leave Afghanistan unfinished and go into Iraq. You take these tasks one at a time. Going to Iraq isn't logical!"

Of course, I thought going to Iraq was effin' crazy, but I was trying to appeal to this man's sense of logic, how you don't start a major project until your first project is completed. But you know what? That's what bush has done all his life. Why would anyone expect that Afghanistan would be any different.

Yes, his lack of planning is criminal.

[Tesha]

13. Bush was told he could fight a two-front war.

> you don't start a major project until your first project is completed.

It's been a doctrine of the U.S. Military for a while that they could
support a "two war" strategy, for example, Cuba and North Korea sim-
ultaneously. (Some of the long-since-vanished "peace dividend" was a
slight climb-down from that strategy.)

So Bush apparently assumed he could fight his war on terraism on two
fronts simultaneously. Unfortunately, terrorism is a "no fronts" war
and so his attacks were completely unsuitable and mostly ineffective.
Decapitation (via the capture of Osama bin Forgotten) would have been
a far more effective and far less costly tactic (in cost to our
treasury, the lives of our military, and our reputationin the world)
as would defunding the terrorists (even if it meant some tough talk
with our "friends" like Saudi Arabia).

As a military strategist, Bush is a dolt, but what do you expect
from an AWOL 2nd lieutenant and bully?

Tesha

[H2O Man]

3. Good article.

He is hitting the nail on the head.

[BurtWorm]

4. kick

[stellanoir]

5. if we had a vestige of criminal justice

(which is not supposed to be an oxymoron) left in the land, this would truly constitute criminal negligence. It sickens me completely.

[demgrrrll]

6. Reminds me of that Nietzsche quote about being careful when you are

chasing monsters that you do not become one. I think the quote reads that when you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you. There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking justice as long as your actions do not exacerbate the problem. Bush's actions have exacerbated the problems.

[Daphne08]

9. "He who fights monsters should be careful

lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

[enough]

7. kick

[BurtWorm]

8. kick

[Justice]

10. Christopher Shays should read this article

[smoogatz]

11. Bravo for Juan Cole

It's one thing to be lied to and deceived by competent rulers (see Clinton); all Presidents lie about one thing or another, except maybe Jimmy Carter. But being lied to by idiots is intolerable: every deception leads to some new disaster. Part of me still can't believe that these nitwits are actually running the most powerful nation in the world. What a nightmare.

[DinahMoeHum]

12. Like I've said, OBL and the al Qaeda have played Bush for a

dumb candy-ass pansy.

:nuke:

[Peace Patriot]

14. And, gee, it would sure help if they hadn't busted a 20+ year CIA

intelligence network on WMDs, and disabled its chief, Valerie Plame, and if British chief WMD expert David Kelly hadn't been "suicided," and Brit Al Q covert agent Naeem Noor Kahn hadn't been outed, and the Italian terrorist investigation hadn't been busted, and FBI Coleen Crowley's investigation hadn't been stymied, and Richard Clarke and FBI John O'Neil hadn't been ousted, and the bin Ladens' exit from the US hadn't been facilitated, and, and, and....

"The U.S. must act as an honest broker in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Har-har-har.

See (Cheney arms dealing)...
Plame...the tip of the iceberg...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2178477#2180220

Also see: (Judith Miller/Valerie Plame/David Kelly)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/3/17138/30618

Plamegate, the File... (start of a time-line)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x137255

It's not a matter of foreign policy, or fighting smart; it's a matter of vicious murder, treason, mass slaughter, massive theft, and utterly conscienceless, out of control, unaccountable war profiteering.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. EXCELLENT! you should start a thread based on this post

seriously

and check this out: Bush joins the G8 parade

?x=380&y=236&sig=3lv5BeGidDXC9fg835Wlyw--

[leftchick]

15. the dim son played right into UBL's plan...

[malmapus]

17. It's in the last throes...look it up in the dictionary

:sarcasm:

[PATRICK]

18. Flytrap is breeding smarter flies

Of course the RW doesn't believe in Darwinian natural selection outside the board room.

We CAN'T fight smarter under Bushco. It is impossible just as they are intractable and lost to humanity. Therefore we are in a crossfire. We can't take out Bin Laden mainly because Bush is in the way. So the first order of business is to get out of the cannon fodder position and remove Bush and his entire tribe from power- forever.

This again is so obscenely stupid there is no arguing with obstinate Bushista loyalists paddling us over the waterfalls because the rush of water seems so easy and affirming.

Hello, there is NOTHING in the national or humankind interest that is central to the Bush agenda. There is no action on his part that helps people or stops the bad.

To hold to Bush doctrine is to believe words only. There is nothing to back it up. Nothing at all and this has been the real divide between the GOP and the Democrats that had been made murky over the last century. The Dems are imperfect but sane. The GOP sees the world as it is and sees something else, says something different, and ruins everything trying to enforce a fantasy. And gets mad and accuses sane people for the failures of its presumptions.

Not that elected Dems are perfect or always insightful about the loons they schmooze with. And they have to present themselves better than just a "better" bureaucrat.

[Octafish]

19. CIA coined Al Qaeda: The DataBASE of Mujahedin

From Robin Cook, an article on a subject you won't see reported by the U.S. press corpse.

The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means

The G8 must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of such atrocities

Robin Cook
Friday July 8, 2005
The Guardian

EXCERPT...

Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Qur'an that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

The danger now is that the west's current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the west emphasises confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us.

The G8 summit is not the best-designed forum in which to launch such a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. Nor do any of them make up the outer circle of select emerging economies, such as China, Brazil and India, which are also invited to Gleneagles. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance.

But the G8 does have the opportunity in its communique today to give a forceful response to the latest terrorist attack. That should include a statement of their joint resolve to hunt down those who bear responsibility for yesterday's crimes. But it must seize the opportunity to address the wider issues at the root of terrorism.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523838,00.html