Posted on 08/11/2010 11:54:11 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Last week the National Bureau of Economic Research published a report on the effect of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq that confirmed what critics of our foreign policy have been saying for years: the killing of civilians, although unintentional, angers other civilians and prompts them to seek revenge. This should be self-evident.
The Central Intelligence Agency has long acknowledged and analyzed the concept of blowback in our foreign policy. It still amazes me that so many think that attacks against our soldiers occupying hostile foreign lands are motivated by hatred toward our system of government at home or by the religion of the attackers. In fact, most of the anger towards us is rooted in reactions towards seeing their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and other loved ones being killed by a foreign army. No matter our intentions, the violence of our militarism in foreign lands causes those residents to seek revenge if innocents are killed. One does not have to be Muslim to react this way, just human.
Our battle in Afghanistan resembles the battle against the many-headed Hydra monster in Greek mythology. According to Former General Stanley McChrystal's so-called insurgent math, for every insurgent killed, 10 more insurgents are created by the collateral damage to civilians. Every coalition attack leads to 6 retaliatory attacks against our troops within the following six weeks, according to the NBER report. These retaliatory attacks must then be acted on by our troops, leading to still more attacks, and so it goes. Violence begets more violence. Eventually more and more Afghanis will view American troops with hostility and seek revenge for the death of a loved one. Meanwhile, we are bleeding ourselves dry, militarily and economically.
Some say if we leave, the Taliban will be strengthened. However, those who make that claim ignore the numerous ways our interventionist foreign policy has strengthened groups like the Taliban over the years. I’ve already pointed out how we serve as excellent recruiters for them by killing civilians. Last week I pointed out how our foreign aid, to Pakistan specifically, makes it into Taliban coffers. And of course we provided the Taliban with aid and resources in the 1980s, when they were our strategic allies against the Soviet Union. For example -- our CIA supplied them with Stinger missiles to use against the Soviets, which are strikingly similar to the ones now allegedly used against us on the same battlefield, according to those Wikileaks documents. As usual, our friends have a funny way of turning against us. Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein are also prime examples. Yet Congress never seems to acknowledge the blowback that results from our interventionism of the past.
Our war against the Taliban is going about as well as our war on drugs, or our war on poverty, or any of our government's wars -- they all tend to create more of the thing they purport to eradicate, thereby dodging any excuse to draw down and come to an end. It is hard to imagine ever "winning" anything this way.
We have done enough damage in Afghanistan, both to the Afghan people, and to ourselves. It's time to re-evaluate the situation. It's time to come home.
May be barf alert, may not be, depending on what your opinion is on Afghanistan.
Which explains why muslims have been attacking Americans since the 1770s how????
You know how it goes: They shoot us, we kick their @$$e$, they resent it and shoot at us again.
The conclusion I draw is a bit different, though.
So since the tollybon and al-queda kill far more civilians than the US does ...
There is a huge problem with the idiot author’s thinking.
First off, the author argues about “blow back” as if it is a one way street; as if it is unidirectional - as if it only happens in one direction; as if the insurgents themselves incur no “blow back” when THEY are the known perpetrators of civilian casualties.
And in the most current situation in Afghanistan, it is known to everyone involved, in or out of Afghanistan, that the majority of the recent rise in civilian casualties is the result of civilians targeted intentionally by the Taliban and by terrorist insurgents of all stripes. The same is true in Iraq.
How is it that the idiot author assumes there is, and will no “blow back” from those facts.
Thirdly, we already know, during the course of the “nation building” towards an Iraq democracy, the civilian population understood “blow back” very well and voted in droves against the insurgents and for the beginnings of democracy, in spite of widespread threats against voting from the insurgents, and in spite of all the carnage the insurgents were creating at the time. No, the Iraqi people understood “blow back” very well.
Given the facts of the second point above, my guess is that in the long run, in Afghanistan too, it will be the insurgents whose popularity will suffer the most from “blow back”, because they are clearly known as the primary agents for creating it.
But why are we staying there just providing targets? Is there an actual goal or are we just staying to prop up that crook Karzai and hand out soccer balls?
The only way Muslims have been able to attack the US is when we let them into our country, which shows no sign of abating. They have a real presence here now, and that is the real threat. How about we threaten to nuke Mecca and quit wasting our troops and money?
Don't confuse past acts of piracy by muslimes (to seize wealth & persons to be ransomed or sold into slavery) with present-day international jihad (Made in USA - it matters!). That was just the first of what I see as 3 historical phases of the US relationship with the muslime world.
Second was between the formation of modern-day Israel through the '70s, when we were occasionally targeted by muzzies because of our support for that nation - and I for one gladly accepted that risk on behalf of the only civilized nation in the middle east.
The third phase however, the current extreme hatred the muzzie world has for us is a recent phenomenon and is a direct result of 2 things - the US gov't arming and encouragement of islamic extremists during the Soviet war in afghanistan, which radicalized them, and the US presence in saudi arabia during and since the gulf war, which gave them a target to strike at.
Ron Paul is as right on foreign policy as he is on economic policy - stay out of these peoples business and their countries, keep them out of ours, and when they "get out of line" teach them to associate acts of aggression against the US with pain, suffering, death and destruction.
Our ugly evil overlords $ee it rather differently.
Ron Paul is absolutely bonkers!! Does he know nothing of the Quran and what it says for Muslims to do to anyone who doesn’t convert to Islam? Man do I hope his son takes a different tack or the Republicans in Tn are toast. Ron should keep his flippin mouth shut untill at least after the elections in Nov. If he thinks he’s helping his son at this point he’s ,,,,, well,,,,,bonkers is the nicest word I can use here.
Do you not understand what the Quran says the Islamic people are to do to non Muslims??? Better do some studying before making policy decisions.
Yes, the koran (toilet paper) says the same thing it's said for well over a thousand years, but the muzzies were not blowing up buildings back then.
Like I said, the modern concept of international jihad is a late 20th century phenomenon, caused by the US/western nations - we radicalized them, we equip them with arms and wealth, we antagonize them and we allow them access to our countries.
If I were making foreign policy, I'd be making it in line with the beliefs I outlined in my previous post - tell me how that could work out worse than the policies the fedgov is operating under now.
You really, really need to study history. A good start may be to understand what the name of the new Mosque in NYC means. If you think Jihad started recently you are whoefully lacking in historical perspective as regards Islam in history.
Hmmmm.
How does that theory fit in with what happened in Germany and Japan in 1945?????
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