Can we really beat Al Queda and terrorism with brute force?

I been thinking about the Bush presidency and the time in which it occurred for a long time. I think Bush is the wrong president in the wrong time. I will try to explain my thinking. But keep in mind that I'm not a scholar and lack the professional experience to deem myself an expert in these matters. But my 74 years of experience have led me to believe in my instinctive and self-educated observations of people and events. So be patient with my attempt to analyse the current world situation.

George W. Bush had no foreign policy experience or knowledge when he decided to run for the presidency. He met Condi Rice, a recognized cold war expert in Soviet affairs and history. Dr. Rice mentored and educated George Bush to give him at least a veneer of foreign policy expertise---just barely. Her task was difficult because Bush is not a reader and is notorious for his lack of curiosity about world events and other things.

Bush surrounded himself with cold warriors in key posts in his government. These cold warriors are steeped in the geopolitics of that era. They appear to have little knowledge of the history and culture of the Islamic nations around the world, except as it impinged on the cold war struggle primarily to defeat the Soviet Union, to protect US access to oil, and the support and protection of Isreal.

The Bush cold-warriors are still fighting the wars and geopolitics of the last century. They are not educated and motivated to fight the wars of the new century against terrorism. That ignorance has led the Bush administration to make a terrible mistake with its attack of Iraq.

I can think of many reasons why the Iraq war is unjustified and unwise. But none is more important than it played directly into Osama bin Laden's trap for the United States.

Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, on page 136 states exactly what I mean. When bin Laden declared war on the United States before Bush took office, he was very clear in stating his goals. "The ingredients al Qaeda dreamed of for propagating its movement were a Christian government attacking a weaker Muslim region, allowing the new terrorist group to rally jihadists from many countries to come to the aid of the religious brethren. After the success of the jihad, the Muslim region would become a radical Islamic state, a breeding ground for more terrorists, a part of the eventual network of Islamic states that would make up the great new Caliphate, or Muslim empire."

Unfortunately, the Bush cold warriors lacked the imagination to realize al Qaeda was able accomplish its devastating attacks around the world because it was not a State. That was bin Laden's winning hand. The arrogance of the cold warriors, convinced that their mighty military and weapons of mass destruction could defeat any foe. They appear to have dismissed Viet Nam as a political failure, not a military one, so one should not be surprised that they would make the same mistake again.

They also lack the understanding of the Islamic world, its life-dominating religion and its nationalistic history. Al Qaeda represents the attempt by militant Islamists to restore the Arab empire to encompass as much of the world as possible. Mosque leaders pronounce the goal of converting non-muslims to the faith all over the world, for example, in countries such as England.

Bush and his cold warriors have failed to recognized that this conflict is, or is leading to a clash of world religions. Terrorism is only one tactic used to further this goal. By attacking Iraq, Bush and the cold warriors have forced the United States and its allies into the first battle of that war.

President Clinton was not a cold warrior and he recognized the changed world and the danger from al Qaeda. Unfortunately, his term of office elapsed before he could effectively counter the growth of al Qaeda.

Then George W. Bush was elected and the cold warriors were in power. It was the wrong president at the wrong time. In general, the Bush administration distrusted anything invented by the Clinton administration and anything of a multilateral nature. The newly elected Bush's focus in early 2001 was on confronting China, withdrawing from various multilateral obligations, and spending much more money on an antimissile defense system. Typical cold warrior thinking. They were not looking into al Qaeda's network because of their arrogance and their lack of imagination to understand the threat.

Mubarak: Arabs Hate U.S. More Than Ever

PARIS (Reuters) - Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published Tuesday.

Mubarak, who visited the United States last week, told French newspaper Le Monde that Washington's actions had caused despair, frustration and a sense of injustice in the Arab world.



"Today there is hatred of the Americans like never before in the region," he said in an interview given during a stay in France, where he met President Jacques Chirac Monday.

He blamed the hostility partly on U.S. support for Israel, which assassinated Hamas leader Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip Saturday weeks after killing his predecessor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

"At the start some considered the Americans were helping them. There was no hatred of the Americans. After what has happened in Iraq, there is unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it," Mubarak said.

"People have a feeling of injustice. What's more, they see (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon acting as he pleases, without the Americans saying anything. He assassinates people who don't have the planes and helicopters that he has."

Israel says such killings are self-defense. But Mubarak said the assassination of Rantissi could have "serious consequences" and that instability in Gaza and Iraq would not serve U.S. or Israeli interests.

"The despair and feeling of injustice are not going to be limited to our region alone. American and Israeli interests will not be safe, not only in our region but anywhere in the world," he said.

Asked about Sharon's plan to pull out of Gaza, Mubarak welcomed any withdrawal that was agreed with the Palestinians and in line with a peace "road map" drawn up by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim - An African Perspective
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
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Ever since September 11, there has been a growing media interest in Islam. What is the link, many seem to ask, between Islam and terrorism? The Spectator, a British weekly, carried a lead article a few weeks ago that argued that the link was not with all of Islam, but with a very literal interpretation of it. This version, Wahhabi Islam, it warned, was dominant in Saudi Arabia, from where it had been exported both to Afghanistan and the US. This argument was echoed widely in many circles, more recently in the New York Times. This article is born of dissatisfaction with the new wisdom that we must tell apart the Good Muslim from the Bad Muslim.

Do you disagree with the assessment that our recent actions are creating more terrorists at a faster rate than we kill them Tarnatulus?

There is no objective "truth", only subjective "truth".