The invasion of Iraq has increased, not decreased, the threat of terrorist attack to US troops and civilians.
With the terrorist bombing of the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad reportedly carried out by Al Queda that resulted in the deaths of additional US civilians, it has become crystal clear that the Bush Administration’s misguided invasion of Iraq has increased, not decreased the threat of terrorist attack to US troops and civilians. Indeed, Al Queda—a longtime rival and enemy of Saddam--would not even be operating in Iraq were it not for the US invasion of that country.
It should come as no surprise to readers of my blog that Hussein and Al Qaeda were never in bed together.
First, Al Qaeda are khawarij terrorists. The big debate among the khawarij was whether to battle apostates in the Islamic world first, or go after the infidels first. Uncle Osama was one of those guys who wanted to go after the heart of the infidels first, and that means the world's only remaining superpower; take out the US, and how long will Israel last? or so khawarij logic goes. The key point is, however, that Hussein was on Al Qaeda's hit list, too, just a little farther down than Uncle Sam.
Second, Hussein was a crafty political leader. He knew his survival was predicated on irritating the US enough to be a hero in the Arab world, but not enough to cause us to remove him. Getting in bed with Al Qaeda would have crossed that line.
Hussein must have been relieved to find out that none of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis. Unfortunately for him, despite the fact that all roads lead to Riyadh or someplace else in that desert kingdom to Iraq's south, the Bush Administration wasn't about to let anything like facts get in the way of something the Bush Administration wanted to do: take out Hussein.
The Bush Administration is failing in its purported bid to counter terrorists who have entered Iraq in record numbers since the US defeated Saddam. In a bid to appease the terrorist-supporting Islamic Republic of Iran, the Administration has declared the People’s Mujahadeen of Iran a terrorist group and has disarmed their fighters and taken over their financial assets, despite the fact that the State Department has admitted that they pose the only effective resistance to the rule of the terrorist Ayatollahs in Iran.
So here was a group that was battling the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Tehran. What does Bush do? Declare that group to be terrorists, giving the terrorist Assaholahs a freer hand at home.
Along with the US decision to disband Iraq’s entire Army and security apparatus, this has left Iraq’s border with Iran wide open for Al Queda and other Iranian backed terrorist groups to enter Iraq and kill more American soldiers and innocent civilians.
And we're wondering why we're having problems now, four years later. This is all a monster of the Bush Administration's own creation.
The blame for the death of every American and allied serviceman and servicewoman who dies in support of operations in Iraq can and should be placed at the feet of our inept commander-in-chief. He eliminated a security apparatus that was effective in maintaining security in Iraq.
And why did we disband Iraq's security apparatus? Ostensibly, we wanted to end Saddam's abusive regime. However, all of the good that the American troops do -- at great human and economic cost to the US -- helping defend and rebuild Iraq was undercut by a foolish policy of the Bush Administration to not only permit but even encourage abuse of detained Iraqis in Abu Ghraib.
And let's be really clear about this.
First, despite the worst allegations, even assuming them all to be true, the US military still has the best reputation of any military in the world for dealing humanely even with an "enemy" population. US personnel routinely risk, and lose, life and limb protecting Iraqis and rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
Second, there's no doubt Hussein's torture was far, far worse than the abuse that happened on the American watch in Abu Ghraib. It is worth recalling that shortly after the Americans turned Abu Ghraib back over to Iraqi authorities, the prisoners there were literally screaming for the Americans to come back!
I am not some leftie. In my world, the Americans are the good guys.
But, the good guys who are the good guys only because they're not as bad as the bad guys aren't really the good guys. (Read that sentence again if you have to.)
What happened on America's watch in Abu Ghraib is a disgrace, it dishonors the sacrifice made by our forces who are trying to defend America (and Iraq!) from those who routinely mistreat prisoners, females, and any others who get in their way; it has helped motivate our enemies to fight harder, and those who were neutral to join our enemies, while drying up support among our allies. The cause for all of this is the idiotic policies emanating from the current White House.
Another idiotic move of the Bush Administration was the decision, back in 2003, to allow Shiite terrorists into the new Iraqi government:
Perhaps the most disturbing recent development occurred at the end of last month when the chief spokesman of the Iraqi Al-Dawa ‘Party,’ Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was selected as the first of Iraq’s post Saddam-era interim Presidents out of the nine-person rotating chief executive body. Al-Jaafari will serve as President of Iraq through the end of August. Al-Dawa is a fundamentalist group that is affiliated with the better-known, but equally radical group, Hezbollah, which has openly declared its intentions to target American soldiers and civilians in Iraq for assassination. Some US intelligence officials have implicated Al-Dawa in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which cost the lives of two hundred and forty-one Marines. The car bombing of the Marine barracks constituted the most severe act of terrorism in US history until the September 11th, 2001 suicide bombing attacks. Nevertheless, in the months before the war the Bush Administration courted Al Dawa by including it among the opposition groups that would control postwar Iraq, in addition to providing it with military assistance and US training. Al-Dawa has been described by one US intelligence officer as being “like hard-core Vietcong.”
[ . . . ]
The reason for the Administration’s decision to allow these radical Shiite terrorist groups the largest number of seats on Iraq’s new Governing Council is that the neocon architects of the war in the Bush Administration believe that no Iraqi post-war government can long endure unless it is sufficiently “representative” of Iraq’s population, which is sixty percent Shiite Muslim. The conclusion that affirmative action and religious quotas should be applied to Iraq’s new Governing Council might make limited sense if it were not applied to ensure that the most militant and radical terrorist Shiite groups in Iraq are the ones given the power in the new “democratic” Iraq. The Bush Administration is repeating the same mistake in Iraq as it did with regards to the Palestinian Authority, where it continues to recognize the terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the Palestinian people and support a PLO-led Palestinian state. The new US appointed Governing Council notably excludes the more moderate Shiite factions which it should be supporting to govern Iraq, whose leaders have been targeted for assassination by the Iranian-supported terrorist and Shiite extremist elements
All of which brings us back to an earlier point: Hussein was a dirtbag, but not as bad as what was lurking beyond Iraq's borders, waiting for an opportunity....
Sadoun al-Dulaimi, a moderate Iraqi tribal leader who serves as an adviser to Americans working in the Pentagon-led Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, has warned the US authorities in Iraq about the danger of radical terrorist groups like Al-Dawa, which he said would resist any non-Islamic government in Iraq. Back in May, Al Dulimi stated that Al-Dawa and other radical Iraqi Shiite groups had created their own weapons storehouses in Nasiriyah and Basra. "This will lead to civil war," al Dulimi said at the time. "I advised (Pentagon-appointed leader) Jay Garner to watch these groups. I said, 'You're going to have problems soon.'" In June, when thousands of American troops raided what they believed were bases for loyalists to Saddam Hussein, provoking a lengthy firefight that killed four Iraqis, the Shiite newspaper Al Dawa described the deaths as "martyrdom." Given the fact that Al Dawa and the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq continue to arm themselves even though Saddam and his Baathist adherents have been vanquished seems to indicate their intention to use their weapons against US troops and innocent civilians in Iraq.
Al-Dawa was banned along with other Islamic terrorist groups and parties by Saddam Hussein while he was still in power. However, in post Saddam Iraq, both anti-American Shiite terrorist groups and the Iraq Communist Party have been welcomed with open arms into the US appointed twenty-five member Iraqi Governing Council, while only the secularist Baathist Party which ruled Iraq under Saddam has been banned. The ascension of a leader of a terrorist group which is likely responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers for which it is yet to be held accountable to serve as Iraq’s first post-Saddam-era president, is a development whose ramifications have not, to the author’s knowledge, been reported elsewhere. It serves as a major warning sign that post-Saddam Iraq will likely pose a far greater terrorist threat to the US than when Saddam Hussein was in power.
In retrospect, it now appears clear that President Reagan was right to support Saddam Hussein and Iraq in their war against Iran, which today poses a far more pronounced threat to the US and its allies in the Middle East than it did during the 1980’s....
Again, the analysis quoted here was from the summer of 2003!
It is popular in the blogosphere to blame the Dhimmocrats for wanting to lose the war in Iraq, for being soft on Iran, etc., but it's not the Dhimmocrats' fault -- they hadn't even gotten up to bat when Bush & Co. snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!
The deck was stacked against our troops from the very beginning by Bush & Cheney's imperious incompetence. The Democrats are only now, belatedly, reacting to Bush's buffoonery, and, even now, the Democrats are too divided up and too afraid of Bush to cause him serious problems.
The only war Bush is winning is the war against dissenting viewpoints from loyal Americans who want to effectively defend our country against Islamic khawarij conquest.
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