Kill Them There, or They'll Kill Us Here
By Steve Weissman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Having lived in London during the IRA bombing campaign of
the 1970s, I can feel a small part of the terror that bus
and subway riders must have felt when the four bombs
exploded on July 7, and again when only the detonators went
off last week. This is what life has become in an age of
terror, and it could get even worse unless we get a grip on
how terror works.
One key is how we choose to respond.
Like most people, I feel anger and revulsion for the
suicidal "Fools of God" who believe that their religious
faith gives them the right to maim and kill others. But
history and logic suggest that striking back the wrong way
too often harms more of the innocent and only helps the
terrorists get what they want. Just look at how our deadly
military reaction to 9/11 has built support for Osama bin
Laden throughout the Islamic world.
To prove more effective against the terrorists, I would act
on a different emotion - the disgust many of us feel when
President Bush rushes to use every act of terror to sell
his own murderous Crusade.
Addressing the July 7 bombings in London on his weekend
radio address two days later, Mr. Bush could hardly wait to
repeat his customary mantra:
"We are now waging a global war on terror - from the
mountains of Afghanistan ... to the plains of Iraq," he
declared. "We will stay on the offense, fighting the
terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them at home."
Kill them there, or they'll kill us here.
Never mind that Mr. Bush's show of force in Afghanistan and
Iraq did not stop the terrorists from killing and maiming in
Bali, Casablanca, Riyadh, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid,
Baghdad, and London.
Never mind that the CIA's National Intelligence Council
warned over a year ago that Iraq had replaced Afghanistan
as both a recruiting and training ground for the next
generation of professionalized terrorists, who will over
time "disperse to various other countries," including the
United States.
Never mind that the CIA warned again this May that Iraq had
become a real-world laboratory for urban combat, dispersing
to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept
and better organized than they were before the conflict.
Forget every inconvenient fact. Just suck in your gut and
repeat after your president: Kill them there, or they'll
kill us here.
In the terrifying shadow of 9/11, Mr. Bush's words worked.
They helped win him a second term. And they allowed him to
pursue control of an increasing share of the world's oil and
natural gas - not just in Iraq, but across Central Asia.
Somehow, Mr. Bush always seems to find the biggest terrorist
threats in those countries that his friends in Big Oil and
his neo-con advisers most covet.
But, his mantra appears to be losing its magic. According
to the polls, a sizeable majority of Americans now oppose
the war in Iraq, and many are beginning to see the continued
presence of American troops over there as a provocation to
Arabs and other Muslims and a growing threat to American
security at home....
Give the disillusionment a few more months to simmer, add a
bit more scandal over the administration's outing of CIA
officer Valerie Plame, and even more Americans will see just
how Mr. Bush has betrayed us all in a truly disgusting way.
The hard job will be to mobilize that disgust into an
effective political opposition.
But, don't go cock-a-hoop quite yet. Though Iraq has
enflamed Muslims everywhere and recruited untold thousands
to commit terrorist atrocities, bringing American troops
home will not end the attacks. As the Muslim Brotherhood
splinter led by Abd al-Salam Farag showed with the
assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and
the North African Salafis showed with their bombings in
France during the 1990s, politicized Islamists turned to
terror long before Iraq.
The gain would be more nuanced. Terrorists would find far
less support among their fellow Muslims. Team Bush would
suffer a major political defeat, opening the door to a more
rational response to any further acts of terror. And the
world would turn away from a faith-based clash of
civilizations, in which we would all end up being losers.
Well, not all of us.
The more unstable the world is, the more Big Business and the top 1% profits from it!