- Osama bin Laden has won the war in Afghanistan - the
first big battle of the War on Terrorism.
-
- Americans are claiming victory because American bombers
have devastated Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans have been killed, and
the already-impoverished country is now almost completely in ruins.
-
- But most likely this is exactly what bin Laden
wanted.
-
- What has the devastation achieved? Osama bin Laden and
Omar the Tentmaker are still on the loose. To the best of my knowledge,
no one who had anything to do with the planning or execution of the Sept.
11 attacks has been captured or killed.
-
- And don't get the idea that the bombings have shown Osama
bin Laden that he can't get away with his nefarious deeds. That conclusion
is 180 degrees off the mark.
-
- Do you think Osama bin Laden cares how many innocent
Afghans are killed?
-
- Why would he? Every dead Afghan is another argument for
his crusade.
-
- Hundreds of millions of people in the Third World already
hate the U.S. - for bombing Iraq, for interfering in the Middle East, for
keeping troops in a hundred countries, for propping up dictators who
support
American policies.
-
- And every bomb that fell on Afghanistan converted more
people into America-haters. The U.S. military has been confirming bin
Laden's
argument that Americans are bullies.
-
- Around the world
-
- In the same way, 10 years of U.S. bombing Iraq hasn't
forced Saddam Hussein to change his policies. Why should it? The bombs
make his stubbornness more popular at home.
-
- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel says he'll continue
to attack the Palestinians until "the other side understands it cannot
achieve anything by using terror; [then] it will be easier to start
negotiations."
But why would terrorists care how many Palestinians die?
-
- By definition, terrorism is the brutalizing of innocent
people in order to cause changes in official policy. So terrorists don't
care how many innocent people are killed on either side. And every one
of their own who dies causes more people to support the terrorists.
-
- Why we are threatened
-
- The root fallacy in the War on Terrorism is the idea
that we have no choice but to fight people who won't rest until they
destroy
us.
-
- But there have always been thugs in the world who wanted
to destroy others. There have always been people who hated America - for
good or bad reasons. There have always been evil people, malicious people,
brutal people.
-
- Why is it that only now do they represent such a grave
threat to us?
-
- The truth is that the evil, malicious, brutal thugs
rarely
have the ability to make any real trouble outside their own neighborhoods.
The few exceptions - people like Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden - succeed
only because they can get the financing, contacts, networking and other
resources necessary to spread trouble.
-
- And they can get that support only if large numbers of
people have been mistreated. That was the case with the Germans after World
War I - who had valuable pieces of Germany torn off and handed to France,
Poland or Czechoslovakia; who had all their foreign investments
confiscated;
who were told to pay astronomical reparations, even though all their
valuable
assets had been taken from them; who were made to bear the entire guilt
for a war they were only one part of.
-
- Hitler could command a very advanced, literate country
because of the terrible treatment the Germans suffered after World War
I. He promised to avenge the terrible wrongs done to them, and they
responded
enthusiastically. If he hadn't had that fertile ground to work with, we'd
never have heard of him.
-
- Today, Osama bin Laden couldn't get the worldwide support
necessary to carry out his evil plans if there weren't hundreds of millions
of people who resent American troops stationed in their countries; who
are appalled by the American blockade that's starving Iraqis; who don't
like American presidents imposing their decisions on their
countries.
-
- The difference between relatively harmless thugs and
truly dangerous thugs is the real grievances the dangerous ones can play
upon. They are still thugs, but they gain the support of honest,
peace-loving
people who have been pushed to the limit.
-
- You'll never be able to subdue all the thugs - especially
if you kill more innocent people in the process - because the very act
of killing arouses even more resentments.
-
- By bombing Afghanistan, by killing people who had nothing
to do with the September attacks, George Bush has handed Osama bin Laden
exactly the victory he craved - the evidence that Americans don't believe
innocent people have a right to live if they get in the way of American
global ambitions.
-
- The terrorist strategy
-
- If bin Laden could mastermind the September attacks,
he must be smart enough to know that bombing the World Trade Center (or
any future terrorist act) isn't going to defeat America. So why did he
do it?
-
- He could see an insecure American president, just barely
elected and worried about his re-election, who might jump at the
opportunity
to demonstrate leadership, play the macho president, start bombing and
feed the worldwide resentment of American foreign policy.
-
- And so bin Laden has maneuvered George Bush into
destroying
a poor, Islamic country - causing a further decline in support for America
among the world's peoples (distinct from their leaders who feed at the
American trough).
-
- Round 1 goes to bin Laden by something close to a
knockout.
-
- Defeating terrorism
-
- We will never defeat terrorism by killing innocent
people.
That's exactly what the terrorists want us to do.
-
- You can make the thugs powerless only by taking away
their ability to gain the support necessary to carry out their plans. That
means our government must get U.S. troops out of foreign countries, quit
telling other nations what to do, and quit killing innocent people in a
futile attempt to "rid the world of evil-doers."
-
- Let there be no misunderstanding: I'm not blaming
America.
I'm blaming American foreign policy.
-
- And I'm not talking about pacifism. I'm talking about
protecting you and me and all of America by not provoking war.
-
- Nor am I talking about poverty as a cause of terrorism.
I'm talking about American foreign policy as a cause of terrorism. The
answer lies not in foreign aid for the world's impoverished. Quite the
contrary.
-
- The answer lies in minding our own business.
-
- The answer lies in ending 50 years of foreign-policy
failures.
-
- Or are we going to let bin Laden win the rest of the
war as well?
- ___
-
- Harry Browne is the director of public policy at the
American Liberty Foundation. You can read more of his articles and find
out about his network radio show at HarryBrowne.org.
-
- http://www.worldnetdaily.com
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