The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117126   Message #2589858
Posted By: Gervase
16-Mar-09 - 04:21 AM
Thread Name: BS: Why Iraq Was a Mistake, Teribus...
Subject: RE: BS: Why Iraq Was a Mistake, Teribus...
Au contraire - in each of the situations you mention you have a resurgent and radical Islamic movement buoyed up sufficiently to resort to violence. In most cases it is the hard-line, anti-Western element - the one which wants to establish the Caliphate - which is doing the running. That is an attitude which has hardened and been easier to promulgate among the young in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

I'm willing to wager that the course of the campaign in Afghanistan would have been entirely different and far more successful had Bush not sent the troops into Iraq. As it is a course of action that I initially supported (albeit with some misgivings, given the historical record of actions in that region) seems to have degenerated into a never-ending exercise in putting fingers into lots of holes in a very large, crumbling dyke, with little chance of success.
To a large swathe of the world, the Taleban are the good guys, holding out against the infidel. Why do you think they have attracted volunteers from all over the world? And now, it seems, their brand of militant Islam is spreading. Pakistan's not looking too good at the moment, is it?

I am aware of the semantic distinctions you make, old fruit. Fatwa, by the way, is a judicial term, not a military/political term.
By that token, are you going to say that those PIRA attacks not aimed directly at the security forces on the UK mainland were not acts of terrorism? Or that the Taleban would actually be quite happy to have Afghanistan become a moderate democracy?

Let's have a straight answer to this question:
Has US foreign policy since 2001 inflamed or moderated Muslim militancy and has there been an increase or a decrease in terrorism?

Or maybe we are seeing a subtle undercurrent of racism in your bluster. Is it because those affected tend not to be white Westerners, that it doesn't matter?. After all, some of these cultures dohave a different attitude to human life, don't they? It's cheaper in hot countries, so who cares if a few ragheads throw a strop. Not our problem, old boy - anyway, they're all cowering in caves in fear of the white man's missiles, aren't they?