The War INCREASES TERRORISM

The invasion of Iraq, which we’ve been told has made us safer from future terrorist attacks, has, in reality, made us much less safe than we were before 9/11.

Between 1980 and 2003, there were 315 suicide attacks worldwide. Since the US invasion, estimates range as high as 400. This means that for the 23 years prior to the invasion, the number of terrorist attacks averaged at 13 per year; since the invasion they have averaged at 100 per year. 4

Research fellows at the Center for Law and Security at the NYU School of Law have found that “the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost.” 5

According to the New York Times, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” from 2006 claims that the war in Iraq has had a direct role in increasing the diffusion of the radical jihad ideology. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) and the CIA have also put out reports saying that the invasion of Iraq would or has, respectively, increased the threat of terrorism. 6

Reports by an Israeli think tank and Saudi intelligence conclude that the vast majority of foreign fighters in Iraq are not former terrorists, but became such because of the war itself. A study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that 85% of Saudi militants who went to Iraq were not terrorist sympathizers, but were radicalized almost exclusively by the invasion. 7

It is important to empathize with the Iraqis, to put ourselves in their position. Imagine that another country, perhaps China, was attacked by terrorists from, say, Canada, and decided that Bush, and therefore the United States, was a threat to China. Imagine that China invaded and occupied the United States, killed thousands of civilians, rounded people up and held them indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism, tortured and humiliated people, and cut off basic needs such as water, food and medical supplies. How would we feel? What would we do?

The killing of innocent people should never be condoned, and neither should any form of terrorism, but we must also realize what causes terrorism. It is not simply the religion of Islam that creates terrorists, but the actions of the provocateur. We should not humiliate, maim, and murder 100s of 1,000s of people, for that tends to make people hate us. We must not create terrorists faster than we can kill them.

Osama bin Laden has said that the US wants to invade and occupy an oil-rich Arab country, and we gave him credibility with the Muslim world , which considered terrorism a dangerous fringe until the invasion, by doing just that. If we are to stop terrorism, our foreign policy should not advocate behavior that exacerbates anti-US sentiment and the threat of terrorism.