[Mb-civic] Wy Are They Killing Us?

Thu Jul 21 11:16:19 PDT 2005

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    July 13, 2005  Why Are They Killing Us?
by Patrick J. Buchanan   

Who carried out the London massacre, we do not  know. But, as to why they did 
it, we are already quarreling. 
President Bush says that the terrorists are attacking our  civilization. At 
Fort Bragg, N.C., he explained again why we are fighting  in Iraq, two years 
after we overthrew Saddam Hussein. "Iraq is the latest  battlefield in this 
war," he said, in "a global war on terror." 
"Many terrorists who kill … on the streets of Baghdad are  followers of the 
same murderous ideology that took the lives of citizens  in New York, 
Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of  action against them: to 
defeat them abroad before they attack us at  home." 
Bush was echoed by Sen. John McCain. Those terrorists in  Iraq, McCain told 
Larry King, "are the same guys who would be in New York  if we don't win." We 
fight the terrorists over there so we do not have to  fight them over here. 
 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400063175/antiwarbookstore) 
But is this true? 
Few Americans have given more thought to the motivation of  suicide bombers 
than Robert Pape, author of _Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of  Suicide 
Terrorism_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400063175/antiwarbookstore) . His book is drawn from an immense  database on every suicide-bomb 
attack from 1980 to early 2004. Conclusion:  The claim that 9/11 and the suicide 
bombings in Iraq are done to advance  some jihad by "Islamofascists" against the 
West is not only  unsubstantiated, it is hollow. 
"Islamic fundamentalism is not as closely associated with  suicide terrorism 
as many people think," _Pape tells The American  Conservative_ 
(http://amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html)  in its July 18 issue.  Indeed, the world's 
leader in suicide terror was the Tamil Tigers of Sri  Lanka. This secular Marxist 
group "invented the famous suicide vest for  their suicide assassination of 
Rajiv Ghandi in May 1991. The Palestinians  got the idea of the vest from the 
Tamil Tigers." 
But if the aim of suicide bombers is not to advance  Islamism in a war of 
civilizations, what is its purpose? Pape's  conclusion: 
"[S]uicide-terrorist attacks are not so much driven by  religion as by a 
clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies  to withdraw military 
forces from the territory that the terrorists view as  their homeland. From 
Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the  West Bank, every major suicide 
terrorist campaign – over 95 percent of all  incidents – has had as its 
central objective to compel a democratic state  to withdraw."  
The 9/11 terrorists were over here because we were over  there. They are not 
trying to convert us. They are killing us to drive us  out of their countries. 
Before the U.S. invasion, says Pape, 
"Iraq never had a suicide attack in its history. Since  our invasion, suicide 
terrorism has been escalating rapidly, with 20  attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004 
and over 50 in just the first five months of  2005. Every year since the U.S. 
invasion, suicide terrorism has doubled. …  Far from making us safer against 
terrorism, the operation in Iraq has  stimulated suicide terrorists and has 
given suicide terrorism a new lease  on life."  
Pape is saying that President Bush has got it backward:  The Iraq war is not 
eradicating terrorism, it is creating  terrorists. 
The good news? "The history of the last 20 years" shows  that once the troops 
of the occupying democracies "withdraw from the  homeland of the terrorists, 
they often stop – and stop on a  dime." 
Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide-bomb attacks  on U.S., French, 
and Israeli targets in Lebanon. When U.S. and French  troops withdrew and 
Israel pulled back to a six-mile buffer zone, suicide  bombings virtually ceased. 
When the Israelis left Lebanon, the Lebanese  suicide bombers did not follow 
them to Tel Aviv. 
"Since suicide terrorism is mainly a response to foreign  occupation and not 
Islamic fundamentalism," says Pape, "the use of heavy  military force to 
transform Muslim societies … is only likely to increase  the number of suicide 
terrorists coming at us." 
What Pape is saying is that the neocons' "World War IV" –  our invading 
Islamic countries to overthrow regimes and convert them into  democracies – is 
suicidal, like stomping on an anthill so as not to be  bitten by ants. It is the 
presence of U.S. troops in Islamic lands that is  the progenitor of suicide 
terrorism. 
Bush's cure for terrorism is a cause of the epidemic. The  doctor is 
spreading the disease. The longer we stay in Iraq, the greater  the number of suicide 
attacks we can expect. The sooner we get our troops  out, the sooner terrorism 
over there and over here will end. So Pape says  the data proves. This is the 
precise opposite of what George Bush argues  and believes. 
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE,  INC.

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