FPIF Commentary |
Surging Right Into Bin Laden's Hands
Adam Elkus | February 2, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC
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Lost in the "surge" debate is the unfortunate reality that escalation in Iraq, just like the invasion itself, plays into al-Qaida's ultimate strategy to eliminate America. As revealed in a 2005 strategy document, al-Qaida hopes to repeat Osama bin Laden’s victory over the Soviet empire in Afghanistan by eliminating the chief obstacle in the way of establishing an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. The goal is not, as Bush administration and right-wing pundits proclaim, to conquer or directly destroy America. Osama bin Laden wants to provoke the United States into destroying itself.
The game plan owes at least part of its inspiration from Paul Kennedy's book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. In his investigative report The Secret History of Al-Qaeda, Abdel Bari Atwan writes that top al-Qaida ideologist Ayman Al-Zawahiri is a reader and "great admirer" of Kennedy’s book. The New York Times Book Review's Michael Howard summarized the book's insights in a manner that must have clicked with budding jihadists observing the Soviet Union's fall at the time: “Power can be maintained only by a prudent balance between the creation of wealth and military expenditure, and great powers in decline almost always hasten their demise by shifting expenditure from the former to the latter.
According to Atwan's analysis of al-Qaida's "20-year plan," the organization aimed to bring about the fall of the American empire by first provoking – with the September 11 attacks -- Washington into irrationally invading Muslim lands in pursuit of revenge. Al-Qaida's grand strategists calculated that the invasion would propel the umma, the Muslim community, into joining the jihad. Following the fall of the secular socialist Hussein regime, Iraq has indeed become a training ground for limitless waves of foreign jihadis.
In this context, George W. Bush was a great boon to their efforts. Not only did he invade Iraq, which did not have a thing to do with 9/11, but he did almost everything possible to isolate America from its allies. This policy gave bin Laden ample room to target unpopular pro-American regimes from Madrid to Riyadh. Compared to the Southwest Asian battleground of Afghanistan, Iraq is a more congenial base for al-Qaida, since the language, culture, and terrain are more familiar to most Arabs. The jihadis’ strategy is to get America to throw all of its resources into fighting a losing battle against Iraq's lethal patchwork of warring factions.
Bush's "surge" only throws more meat to the jackals, who gain strength and popularity with each web-broadcasted beheading or roadside bomb explosion. Like Afghanistan, Iraq gives would-be jihadis watching the conflict from their computer screens the hope of destroying the military might of the West. The jihadis also hope to expand the conflict to create what Atwan calls a "Triangle of Horror" connecting Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria.
Just as they infiltrated Iraq in the wake of American destruction of the hostile Hussein regime, al-Qaida operatives would follow American or Israeli invasions elsewhere in the region such as Iran or Syria. The attendant destabilization of the Middle East would facilitate infiltrating the Shiite bastion of Lebanon and the secular U.S. ally Turkey. While America wages a doomed war of attrition on many fronts, al-Qaida can hit targets across the world with attacks aimed at throttling the U.S. economy.
One obvious aspect of the economic war will be a cut-off of the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf through terror attacks on pipelines and oil facilities. Bin Laden inflicted $500 billion worth of economic damage on 9/11 for the paltry cost of $500,000. Every terror attack inflicted by al-Qaida's worldwide network has had similar economic consequences. Oil prices have spiked because of constant Mideast instability. And the German magazine Der Spiegel reports that, by the end of 2007, America will have spent $670 billion fighting the "war on terror," more than Washington spent on the Vietnam War or the first two years of World War II. Linda Bilmes of the American Economic Association puts the cost even higher – in the trillions by the end of 2007 -- taking into account indirect costs such as wounded soldiers and the price of oil.
Al-Zawahiri's plan may also include Paul Kennedy's final step, in which an economic rival such as India and China defeats the United States commercially. Al-Qaida's strategists hope that, like the Soviet Union, America will spend itself to death fighting on numerous fronts before succumbing to competition from a rising power. Then, the way will be free to destroy the Arab "apostate" regimes that survive due to American patronage.
All of this time, al-Qaida's master strategists have manipulated Bush like a marionette. Instead of cutting his losses and withdrawing from Iraq – or critically re-examining the failures of the American intervention in Afghanistan -- Bush continues blindly to throw more resources into battle, believing that the United States simply lacks "a will to win." Ironically, he may be partially correct. An Iraqi fighting for his country or an Arab fighting for his umma against foreign occupiers will likely show a good deal more resolve than American soldiers fighting a guerilla conflict thousands of miles away from home.
Americans have little knowledge about Mideast culture or international politics but feel strongly that they have been misled and betrayed by their superiors. This was true as well in Vietnam. Yet the horrors of both wars will be paltry in comparison to the horrors unleashed if we escalate in Iraq and attack Iran. The only voices aside from Bush’s calling to “bring it on” are those from al-Qaida itself.
FPIF contributor Adam Elkus is a freelance political writer and Huffington Post blogger (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-elkus/). His articles have appeared in Z Magazine, Common Dreams, and Counterpunch.
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Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). Copyright © 2009, Institute for Policy Studies.
Recommended citation:
Adam Elkus, "Surging Right into Bin Laden's Hands," (Silver City, NM and Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, February 2, 2007).
Web location:
http://fpif.org/fpiftxt/3961
Production Information:
Author(s): Adam Elkus
Editor(s): John Feffer, IRC
Production: John Feffer, IRC |
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Latest Comments & Conversation Area
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| Name: |
Richard Kanegis |
Date: Feb 07, 2007 |
Queen Noor of Jordan hounded Al Qaeda after the bombings of the hotel guests, until al Qaeda agreed to avoid muslim crowds. Too bad there wasn't a Queen Noor in Africa when the streets in front of two US embassies in Africa were attacked killing mostly Muslims, On the anniversary of the Madrid bombings a Muslim Spanish Cleric called bin Laden a traitor to Islam but no one traslated it into other laugages. A prileged giant of a man pretending to be little David standing up to Galliath. Since Bush can't fight al Qaeda and its a real threat, can the people of the world stand up to its insanity instead of complaining of Bush doing everything wrong. By the way Bush did urge people not to deface Muslim businesses after 9/11 and he and Powell may have helped India and Pakistan cool off after a bin Ladne inspired attack on the Indian parliment. We should blame the war more on the mad genus than the clumsy retard in the White House.
Sicerely,
Ric Kanegis bananagis@aol.com 22 S 22nd St Apt 305 Phila PA 19103
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| Name: |
Ric Kanegis |
Date: Feb 08, 2007 |
| Honored Peace Activists vs Beheading Them
Despite renewed talk of "Hanoi" Jane, almost on one seems to note how vastly different North Vietnam's attitude toward the Western peace movement was when compared to al Qaeda's. North Vietnam cheered Jane Fonda and Western pacifists. Al Qaeda beheaded them and I think it is attempting to systematically sabotage the traditional Western peace movement, and encourage hawks. Tom Fox and a Quaker peace team went to Iraq to talk peace. He was beheaded, the rest of the team then rescued by US troops. In Afghanistan Doctor's Without Borders physicians were beheaded.
The timing of al Qaeda's terror attacks may be set to take the spotlight away from more peaceful attempts to create change. During Britain's biggest peace protest bombs went off at the British Consulate in Turkey and two synagogues eclipsing the peace event. The concept that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with fighting terror spread rapidly until bin Laden demanded that Iraqis not vote. Also on the Internet, bin Laden, before the 2004 US election berated Bush for continuing to read to little kids instead of dealing with 9/11 getting some voters angry enough to vote for Bush. Moussaoui during his 9/11 trial condemned his peace-nik Jewish lawyer and urged America to blame the Jews for their problems. When, then Majority-leader, Bill Frist was making a grim, live Congressional Report of additional Abu Ghraib photos Congress had privately viewed, bipartisan support for detention reform was on the agenda, but a news bulletin cut him off. Al Qaeda posted Nick Berg's beheading to the Internet.
Moussaoui and other fanatics, could be trying to be treated as harshly as possible to further their cause, while sweeping legislation, makes life miserable for Bin Laden's former chauffeur, and a blind cleric who was somehow convicted of terrorism in the US while he was still urging only nonviolent protest in his homeland, Egypt. How can someone who humbly listens to a female Jewish lawyer be put in the same terrorist box as someone who wants us to blaim the Jews for everything?
Osama bin Laden must envision Islam as a permanent warring class like he pictures the 11th century. He must not want peace to be established anywhere in the world until at least Mecca is liberated into al Qaeda's hands. If US troops try to leave, al Qaeda is capable of suicide bombing withdrawing troops to prevent them from leaving. The human race might not make it unless we expect and in advance resolve to ignore, a huge attack domestically in the final stages of any future peace agreement. Last minute provocative incidents didn't stop peace from taking hold in Northern Ireland.
As far as blaming Bush for it all, in October 2004 an unnamed Iraqi go-between arranged for commanders in the field for the rebels in Fallujah to accept nominal central government authority and temporarily withdrew as the locals cheered, what they thought was the war's end. John Kerry and other Democratic Centralists complained of terrorists hiding in Falujah. And Bush demanded that al Sadr be turned over for trial. The same Sunni leader who is now killing Shiites. I wish Bush would agree or protesters would demand that he would agree to withdraw to any joint Shiite-Sunny coalintion council that asks him to. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush were mediators after nuclear-armed India and Pakistan were slipping toward war following a bin Laden inspired attack on the Indian parliament. Bin Laden may have almost succeeded at making this a miserable planet for daring to think that man was more important than God.
There has been bits of good news after the bombing of the Hotel guests in Jordan, Queen Noor was on TV every day until al Qaeda decided to avoid Muslim crowds. To bad there wasn't a Queen Noor in Africa in the beginning when al Qaeda bombed the streets in front of two US embassies in Africa, also killing mostly Muslim civilians. After Israeli soldiers tragically mistook a toy riffle for a real one the grieving Palestinian father allowed his little son's organs to be used to save sick Jewish kids spreading much good will for a while. On the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings a Spanish Muslim cleric called bin Laden a traitor it Islam, but the Western Media choose not to translate his speech into other languages. Another possible source to criticize bin Laden with, is to note that the Taliban used to ban drugs, but the new Taliban uses drugs to buy guns with. The 9/11 hijackers got drunk the night before to smell like decadent Western revelers. Will bin Laden's new goal-oriented Islam lead to Muslim brothels with the profits going to jehad?
Before 9/11 militancy was in sharp decline. Young Muslims weren't joining in disgust over not allowing doctors for women, or music in Afghanistan. Bin Laden, a tall giant of a man with a clever brain and a privileged, cushy upbringing has managed to depict himself as a little David standing up to Goliath. The peace movement claims Bush is doing what bin Laden wants, Bush claims it's the peace movement. But somehow those claim the war is a Jewish conspiracy aren't accused of doing what bin Laden wants. Perhaps we are all for the most part doing what bin Laden wants as if Charles Manson managed to impose his vision of Helter Skelter on the world.
The term agent-provocateur shows that pulling forward while others are pushing isn't brand new. Even the assassination of the former prime minister of Lebanon, a truck bombing where the van was stolen in Japan a year earlier and shipped to Lebanon to prevent tracing, (it would have been to Syria's advantage if he died in his sleep or fell out a window) and the radiation poisoning of a former Russian spy could have been al Qaeda.
Before 9/11 we thought the human race was going to get together to explore the stars. Now any spaceship will limp along with passengers feuding all along the way. Part of the ship under shea law, part under Hasidic law, that is rapidly overtaking Israel, and part by Americans who never heard of Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, already school kids never hear of Thomas Pane. Bin Laden is a very sad success story for all out futures, but waking up to what's going on may help a little.
Richard Kanegis is a retired Philadelphian
RichardKanegis@aol.com, 215-563-2866 22 S 22nd St Apt 305 Phila PA 19103
Also, Richard.Kanegis@verizon.net, Prefer simultaneous emails and phone calls.
REFERENCES
I been trying out a warning for four years so far only in the Philadelphia area neighborhood papers. Bush deciding finally to leave Iraq is as likely as him getting Impeached. This manuscript together with Adam Elkus's "Foreign policy in Focus" article article should be used to appeal to people like Condoleezza Rice and Liberman, since meeting Bush personally is difficult.
http://www.server-jbmultimedia.net/UCReviewFlip/sitebase/data/editions/57289/img/large/1503354.htm
http://www.philly1.com/story5020905.html
SURGING RIGHT INTO BIN LADEN'S HANDS
"escalation in Iraq, just like the invasion itself, plays into al-Qaida's ultimate strategy to eliminate America."
http://www.alternet.org/stories/47703
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| Name: |
Rich Gardner |
Date: Feb 10, 2007 |
| This assertion that 9-11 "made" Bush invade Iraq is hard to square with the observation made in Vanity Fair at http://tinyurl.com/2tq3ft
[My own observation] In mid-1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came up with a plan called "A Clean Break."
[Vanity Fair] "Ten years later, 'A Clean Break' looks like nothing less than a playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era. Many of the initiatives outlined in the paper have been implemented—removing Saddam from power, setting aside the 'land for peace' formula to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon—all with disastrous results."
[Me again] The plan for invading Iraq was already in place long before Bush even took office. Neither does the FPIF author explain how al Qaeda manuevered Bush and/or Cheney into invading Iraq a year and a half after 9-11. Further, 9-11 as a plot by Osama bin Laden is brought into question by Loose Change at http://tinyurl.com/ebw7r and by a much shorter film at http://tinyurl.com/38rf4f
The idea that the invasion of Iraq was irrational is hard to square with the fact that Iraq has very large stocks of oil, oil that's of superior quality and is easy to pump. Bush and many other members of his administration are Texas oilmen. It's very difficult to believe they didn't invade specifically for the purpose of getting Iraq's oil.
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| Name: |
arn |
Date: Feb 11, 2007 |
| I see that Foreign Policy in Focus is still peddling American propaganda about "Al-Queda" and "former" CIA asset Tim Osman (aka Usama Bin Laden).
Like the Liberal/Democrat wing of the American Empire in general, the progressives at FPIF try to posture as antiwar opponents and peace advocates--all while studiously promoting fundamental American lies about the phony War on Terrorism and the very nature of Al-Queda.
Adam Elkus thus "opposes" the American surge of troops against Iraq because it plays right into Mr. Bin Laden's diabolical evil plans to have the American Empire destroy itself.
This hysteria sounds like a script from a bad Hollywood movie, but Elkus' propaganda obscures some important issues:
1. With respect to America's bogus "War on Terror," this war has nothing to do with fighting terrorism in the first place; this war is about expanding the American Empire and maintaining American geopolitical domination of the planet. In particular, the USA seeks to dominate and control energy resources like oil, military encircle strategic opponents like Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea, and "regime change" governments of countries with strategic value.
This agenda is supported by the *entire* American political establishment in one form or another. The Neocons favor a more unilateralist approach to advancing American global domination, while the progressives (like FPIF) and Democrats favor a Kinder, Gentler multilateralist gambit--usually disguised behind lies about promoting democracy and human rights.
2. In terms of "Al-Queda," as authors like Webster Tarpley and Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed have convincingly documented, America has actively sponsored and supported this terrorist organization!
Let me repeat this again: America has covertly sponsored and supported the very same "terrorist" enemy of Al-Queda that it claims to be fighting!
For example, under the Democrat regime of Bill Clinton, America supported Al-Queda and other Islamicist groups in the Balkans, as a key geopolitical strategy to destabilize, war war against, and ultimately dismember Yugoslavia as a nation in the 1990s.
As Ahmed writes,
"In 1993, al-Qaeda operatives reportedly bombed the World Trade Center. From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon, with British complicity, flew thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs. The mujahideen were 'accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment,' according to intelligence sources. Bin Laden’s mercenaries were used as shock troops by the Pentagon 'to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives.'"
This is but one example of covert American terrorism that the American Free Press and political establishment--from the conservative Fox News and Heritage Foundation to the "progressive" Huffington Post and FPIF--all will deny, downplay, or cover up.
3. If America's War on Terrorism is a massive lie of global proportions and America has covertly sponsored the very Al-Queda terrorist organization it supposedly hates, who was really behind the September 11th terror attacks?
http://nafeez.blogspot.com/
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| Name: |
Aaron |
Date: Mar 16, 2007 |
| Arn,
I would suggest that you read other articles presented by FPIF because the analysts from this excellent website do not advocate American imperialism at all. On the contrary, they argue against it, along with their stance that the United States should follow international law which is still very relevant and must not be dismissed in this post 9/11 world.
I'm pretty sure FPIF is fully aware that the Bush administration's so-called "war on terror" is actually a smoke screen so that the current neoconservative regime in Washington can set forward its global agenda in order to have the upper hand against competing economic powers, and to impose a neoliberal market economy for the reasons you said. We all can agree - just like I agree with your comments regarding covert operations as part of US policies back in the 90's in ex-Yugoslavia, which are reminiscent of the ones when the United States backed, trained, and financed the Afghan rebellion against the Soviet occupation.
The thing is when that narrative falls into easy arguments in order to expose the relation behind the US and al-Qaeda for instance, it somehow loses credibility, and FPIF avoids that pitfall.
Instead, the folks at FPIF present articles and reports with solid arguments based on history and geopolitical facts that actually demonstrate the incoherence and the double standards behind US foreign policies so that the readers can actually figure out the real goals underneath the "Bush Doctrine."
For example, leading analysts at FPIF ask the question as to why the senior leadership of al-Qaeda - considered the biggest threat right now - is composed of individuals who all come from countries that are militarily backed by the United States ? and why is it that none come from the ones on Washington's hitlist ? That fact, which is never reported in the news media, opens the door to this entire issue in which your arguments become legitimate and valid.
But if you start resorting to conspiracy theories on 9/11, they will immediately be discredited because ordinary people in general are not still not willing to accept that the US government is capable of foreign policies for strategic purposes in the past, that eventually led to 9/11.
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| Name: |
arn |
Date: May 10, 2007 |
| Aaron: FPIF represents the interests of the "progressive" political wing of the American Empire. Like most progressives, they would like to damage control the blame primarily to George Bush or the "Neocons," when they know very well that the Democrats and Liberals have supported both the invasion of Iraq and the phony "War on Terrorism." This is not just "Bush's War," as these Liberal American imperialists love to say, but America's War in general. The so-called Bush Doctrine is only a more naked expression of American foreign policy for most of the 20th-Century--Democrat or Republican alike. If you read most of the analysis here, FPIF will "criticize" American imperialism ONLY from a self-serving political perspective. Namely, they feel that America's most recent aggression against Iraq has cost too much in dead troops, money, or is undermining America's imperial interests around the world.
FPIF favors a more Multilateralist (as opposed to Unilateralist) American Empire. Hence, they continually bleat about how the USA should follow "international law"--as if this law is not the Law of the Jungle and not ultimately dictated and defined by America and its allies.
Finally, on the issue of 9-11, FPIF--like most phony American progressives--will dismiss any questioning of the 9-11 lies as "conspiracy theory."
However, the real conspiracy theory is the ludicrous official American version about the Sept. 11th attacks--a version that has been propagandized by the American free press, the Democrats, and the entire American system, not just Bush. This official American propaganda about 9-11 cannot stand up to scrutiny and is the true ridiculous "conspiracy theory" promoted by American Liberals and Conservatives just the same.
http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/
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