Gee. I don’t want to say we told you so.
A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.
The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.
Even the Cato Institute predicted this. Here are CATO’s reasons two and three for not invading Iraq:
2. Occupation of an Islamic country by the United States could be a recruiting poster for Islamic terrorists. We should remember the worldwide mobilization of Islamic radicals to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. An invasion of Iraq would play right into al Qaeda’s hands. Terrorists hope for an excessive, intrusive response by their adversary so that they can recruit more supporters.
3. Invading and occupying Iraq would distract the U.S. government from the vital task of destroying an enemy that has actually attacked the U.S. homeland–al Qaeda. U.S. intelligence agencies apparently have no hard evidence that links Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks. How is an unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq, without international support, is relevant to the legitimate war against America’s terrorist adversaries.
We can fix this though. All we have to do is more waterboarding, more induced hypothermia, more unilateral interventions, and a longer occupation of Mesopotamia. I’m sure of it.
but my country was gone.
Their game is brilliantly played. They have created this idea of Muslim Terrorists by organizing numerous false flag “Terror Attacks” with 911 the crowning piece. 911 finally makes us attack those ‘Terrorist’ oil soaked countries, generating real enemies this time which forces us, the sacrificial pawns, to stay involved indefinitely with those ‘damned bastards’.
What is most devastating is not that they were told, but that they needed to be. Any 10-year-old who’s seen a few movies or TV shows would have known for sure how the invasion/occupation would turn out–that you don’t win allies by blowing away their grandma. Any 14-year-old who passed geography would have known that the balance of oil and demographics assured that the US would pay a terrible price for many decades and that the world would be put at real and serious risk of destruction.
There is no denying that Bush is a God Damned moron, but there were and are people around him — his handlers — who knew as well. There couldn’t be the slightest question about the outcome.
But that was not the point. The point was to grab onto the pain of a national tragedy and pervert it to serve whatever dark and psychotic needs drive this administration and the politicians who even now support and defend it. We will never really understand what malignancy was advanced by a decision that goes beyond stupidity, even beyond insanity, and comes down finally to an incomprehensible obsession to ruin America. No one in the GOP will even come close. Neither will the likes of Kerry or Pelosi or Rangel. But Hugo Chavez came close.
Stay the Course!!