13 Sep, 2011
THE DAILY STAR : A decade on, does the U.S. quite get it?
The security- and war-dominated, American-led over-reaction to 9/11 led to two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased political and technical support to Arab security services – exactly the two phenomena that led to the birth and growth of Al-Qaeda in the first place.
It is critical to any useful analysis of Al-Qaeda terror to recall that a foreign military presence on “sacred” Islamic soil twice fuelled critical periods of Al-Qaeda’s birth and expansion: first when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan after 1979, and second when the United States remained in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf war against Iraq. Sending American troops post-9/11 to invade and remain in Arab lands was a sure-fire recipe for stoking the fires of resistance against foreign occupiers of Muslim realms – always the most successful recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda, which sees itself as defending Muslim lands and societies from corrupt and apostate Muslims or foreign predators.
via THE DAILY STAR :: Opinion :: Columnist :: A decade on, does the U.S. quite get it?.
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