Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 16:26:09 -0400
From: carol@carolmoore.net (Carol Moore)
Subject: [libs4peace] War on Terrorism Creating More Terrorists


> http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jun23.html

> June 23, 2002

> Anti-U.S. militants showing up all over

> By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor

>  ZURICH -- According to a secret government report revealed last week by the

> New York Times, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan not only "failed to

> diminish the threat to the United States," but actually complicated the U.S.

> counter-terrorism campaign by dispersing its radical foes across the Muslim

> world.

>

> The small, tightly-knit leadership of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has been

> succeeded by a group of younger militants who have formed ad hoc alliances

> with other anti-U.S. groups from Morocco to Indonesia. These groups now pose

> the most serious danger to the United States and will remain a potent threat

> for years to come.

>

> This dismaying report confirms what this writer has been saying in columns

> and on CNN since 9/11. A full-scale military invasion of Afghanistan would

> prove futile; the correct response was intelligence and police work, not

> brute force.

>

> Al-Qaida's numbers were grossly exaggerated by the Bush administration and

> U.S. media. Hardcore al-Qaida members never numbered more than 200-300.

> Claims that there were 5,000-20,000 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan were

> nonsense. These wild exaggerations came from lumping Taliban tribal warriors

> with some 5,000 Islamic resistance fighters from Kashmir, Uzbekistan,

> Tajikistan, the Philippines and Chinese-ruled Eastern Turkistan, none of

> whom were part of al-Qaida.

>

> The reason 12,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops operating in Afghanistan

> can't find al-Qaida - a campaign that has so far cost over US$10 billion -

> is that there were few to begin with; by now, most have slipped away through

> Pakistan. Instead, the U.S. is getting mired in Afghan tribal politics by

> trying to maintain a regime in Kabul that will take orders from Washington.

>

> Last week's much ballyhooed grand tribal council, or loya jirga, that

> "elected" CIA "asset" Hamid Karzai as national leader was a wildly expensive

> charade conducted under the guns of U.S. and British troops. Karzai's

> "election" has cost Washington $5 billion in bribes and payoffs to Afghan

> warlords. As soon as U.S. and British occupation troops decamp, Afghanistan

> will again dissolve into tribal chaos or fall under the control of Russia,

 which continues to arm and direct the Northern Alliance.
>

> Fury over Palestine

>

> It's also becoming painfully clear that Afghanistan was never the true

> epicentre of anti-U.S. militancy, as Washington initially believed. The real

> hotbeds of Islamic resistance to the United States lay in Egypt, Arabia,

> North Africa and Europe. According to the leaked report in the Times, a

> loose network of anti-American groups have surfaced in these regions, united

> mainly by their fury over events in Palestine, America's impending invasion

> of Iraq, and opposition to America's political and economic domination in

> the Muslim World.

>

> Osama bin Laden, be he dead or alive, and his al-Qaida movement have become

> irrelevant. In truth, they were never much more than a symbol of hatred and

> defiance. But their message, propagated by 9/11, has reverberated around the

> world. The torch of anti-Americanism is being taken up by the "jihadi"

> movement - Muslim veterans of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan

> during the 1980s - and by a younger generation of militants.

>

> Sizeable numbers of anti-American militants have been uncovered in Europe

> and arrested by local police and intelligence forces, the only major

> success, to date, of the "war on terrorism." But more hostile groups are

> springing up faster than they can be identified or neutralized.

>

> Call this the privatization of warfare. Many young Muslims despair their own

> feeble, corrupt, U.S.-dominated regimes will ever bring justice to the

> Palestinians, save Iraq from invasion by the U.S., or end what they view as

> oppressive American influence over their nations. They are taking matters

> into their own hands by waging a personalized war against the United States

> and Israel, two nations that have become one in the eyes of the Muslim

> world.

>

> Forty years ago, the Islamic world regarded the United States as its best

> friend and saviour. Today, the two are on a collision course. There is

> growing fear across the Muslim world that the Bush aministration is being

> driven by backers of Israel and fundamentalist Christians into a modern

> anti-Islamic crusade.

>

> Powell sidelined

>

> The leaked report in the Times likely originated from Colin Powell's

> Department of State. Powell is widely respected abroad as the

> administration's most intelligent and ethical member, but he has been almost

> totally sidelined because of his opposition to invading Iraq and waging a

> wider war against the Muslim world. Foreign policy - particularly towards

> he Mideast and South/Central Asia - has been taken over by a hardline,

> ardently pro-Israel faction in the Pentagon and the office of Vice President

> Dick Cheney. Powell may soon resign in disgust.

>

> President Bush's National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, should provide

> balance and nuance. But she has shown herself a rigid ideologue with poor

> judgment and very limited understanding of the outside world. She is in way

> over her head. Bush is not getting the sound advice he needs. As a result,

 he has been vacillating and contradicting himself for months.
>

> Afghanistan, billed only last fall as a triumph for America and President

> Bush, is now looking less and less like a victory and more each day like the

> beginning of a long, bloody struggle that could and should have been

> avoided.

>

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.

> Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com or visit his home

> page.



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