.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, July 21, 2006

Blowback

How many new terrorists have been created in the last ten days? How many children have lost their fathers? How many fathers have lost their children? How many have had their homes destroyed? How many have been forced to Hezbullah or the Sadr militias for food and shelter?

How many people have been filled with rage at the apparent US supply and sanction of Israel? How many people look at the carnage in Iraq and blame the US?

How many Muslims have taken the step towards terrorism in Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, or London?

How many now want to kill Americans? How many now want to car bomb this country?

No one knows.

And that should scare us more than anything.

3 Comments:

  • exactly

    By Blogger Graeme, at 12:45 PM  

  • When will we stop calling them terrorists? They're partisans, fighting for their family, to protect or avenge them.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:03 PM  

  • Romunov, we do have a definitional problem. I agree that attacks in Iraq by Iraqis are not terrorism.

    Also, within the context of the ongoing hostilities, I would say that the Hezbullah attacks are acts of warfare not terrorism.

    But, attacks outside the theater could be argued to be terrorism. That's where it gets a little slippier. And that's what I was talking about in this post. Not localized violence within the context of their conflicts, but a broader targeting.

    I'm willing to argue back and forth on a terror definition. If Iraqis attacked in the US is that technically terrorism or part of the conflict? I don't know.

    But specific to this post, I was using terrorism to indicate attacks outside the direct context of their conflicts.

    Pakistanis or Egyptians or Jordanians attacking the US, as example. Or attacks by Iraqis out of temporal context in 15 years.(assuming the US is no longer in Iraq.)

    Sorry for the lack of clarity. I was just trying to make a point about the long term implications of bad policy. (See Afghanistan/Al Qaeda.)Thanks for the criticism.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:13 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home