Failed Raid In Pakistan Another Setback For Building Support Against Terrorism

The Bush Administration has a real penchant for being able to pull out a major foreign policy defeat from the jaws of victory. Had the covert CIA Predator drone aircraft asault in remote Pakistan succeeded in taking out the #2 in Al Qaeda, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, then the intellectual leader of this organization would be gone. And Al Qaeda leadership would live in constant psychological terror that they could be struck in any nation, and that their organization must be compromised from within by infiltration and traitors. Instead it appears that bad intelligence may well have created a new serious setback and failure for the Bush Administration.

It appears likely that not only was intelligence information wrong, but that civilians may have been wrongly hit, and only a cow and some private homes were destroyed. This helps to drive a big wedge between the vital support of the government of Pakistan, which is unpopularly offering politically dangerous support to the U.S. and the people of Pakistan. It gives a popular issue to spur possible violence or a political revolt in Pakistan to remove the government or to at least further erode support for this unpopular government.

Israel had great success in combating Hamas terrorism by targeting the leadership in response to terrorist attacks by Hamas in recent years. But unlike the far superior intelligence and infiltration of Hamas or PLO leadership by Israel, the U.S. has had great difficulty infiltrating Al Qaeda. At best, U.S. intelligence into the leadership of this organization is highly suspect. And a leader such as Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri is another vereran of the Afghanistan war with the Soviets, and even wounded in combat in that war, that the Reagan Administration fought by using covert CIA support to build and fund a network of about 30,000 Mujahadeen fighters in Islamic fighter training camps throughout remote areas of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the CIA failed to keep tight contols on this covert war with the Soviets in response to the Brezhnev Doctine in which Leonid Brezhnev held that the Soviet Union had the right to intervene against any internal political weakening of a Soviet socialist ally state. In Afghanistan, the Communist Party strength within the government appeared to wane, and this secular Communist state appeared to present an Islamic threat to the Soviet Union as potentially spreading Islamic separatism throughout the Muslim peoples within the Soviet sphere of power.

Between the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, the growing rise of Islam Mujahadeen radicalism, and the Reagan Administration covert CIA war as another proxy superpower war to combat Soviet influence in Afghanistan, the rise of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda grew up in Afghanistan. The terror networks of the Taliban and Al Qaeda began to grow from within the Mujahadeen forces where Saudi Arabian radical, Osama Bin Laden became an important Mujahadeen leader and fighter training camp organizer. Now the Soviets face serious terrorism threats from Islam Chechen separatists, and the U.S. is locked into serious and spreading war with a growing world Islamic fundamentalist threat. Just like the Soviet war in Afghanistan helped to spur the growth of the Mujahadeen fighter network, the faulty U.S. war in Iraq is also helping to fuel Islamic fighter and radical terrorist growth.

The chess game of the Superpowers over Afghanistan and the failing war in Iraq have given Islamic radicals a rally point to moltivate, recruit and indoctrinate new followers. And with U.S. support for the despotic Shah of Iran that dated back to WWII, who ruled through terror of his population such as "The White Revolution", the U.S. created a backlash of Islamic radicalism and anger that has helped to fuel not only the revolution in Iran, but has given a platform for a radical government bent on acquiring nuclear weapons there. And the militarism of the U.S., as well as the failed economic injustice of trade agreements such as Clinton's NAFTA and Bush's CAFTA have created a massive dumping of cheap wheat and corn products on the South American markets spurring poverty among farm families there, and an illegal immigration crisis for the U.S. as well as the growth of radical leftist antiU.S. governments there. In both Chile and Mexico, two more leftist antiAmerican governments may soon come into power with coming elections.

A combination of wrongful superpower meddling in the affairs of some nations, as well the continued allowed poverty in many nations by the U.S. and other superpowers has created a backlash of problems for the U.S. from states that are increasingly turning antiAmerican. Compared to the far more favorable view of the U.S. during the Clinton years, the Bush Administration is quickly turning the developing world into a dangerous network of radicalism, terrorism and antiAmericanism.

The failed CIA mission in Pakistan against Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri is yet another match thrown into this fuel barrel of problems. It will only further radicalize many in the population in that nation, and forces the government of Pakistan to take some antiU.S. action. What the U.S. dosen't understand is that their own actions often fuel this Islamic radicalism and promote it's growth. There is little understanding within the current Bush Administration on how not to worsen this serious problem. This is the worst legacy of this administration so far, leaving much of the developing world far more radicalized and antiAmerican and creating a hatred that mass produces new antiU.S. radicals and terrorists. Every day this leaves American interests in the world more vulnerable to new threats. This is no way to fight a war on terrorism. There couldn't possiby be any more signs of a foreign policy failure than this.

The U.S. gained important goodwill after help with the Asian Tsunami in the last year. The U.S. needs policies in the developing world that create a respect for the U.S., as well as efforts to eliminate poverty in developing world areas as well. This would be an effective start to reverse this damgerous growing tide of antiAmericanism. The present policies are not working against this growth of antiAmericanism where a serious change of direction is needed to make the U.S. world interests more safe and secure. Sometimes national security comes offering food or a cup of milk to the poor of the world.