Asia Times: Just who's emboldening terrorism?

[unhappycamper]

Just who's emboldening terrorism?
By Ramzy Baroud
Jul 26, 2005

Since the onset of the Bush administration's ill-defined mission and subsequent "long, long war on terror", the American people, even the whole world, have fallen victim to an utterly flawed, yet barely contested voice of reason. Despite the Vietnam-like debacle in Iraq, in which the US administration has willfully immersed the nation, fallacious logic continues to be infused, with the same enthusiasm and doubtlessly with the same grievous outcome.

An independent and thorough study prepared by the Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group recently concluded that at least 25,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed and 45,000 have been wounded since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. According to the study, four times as many victims died at the hands of US-led forces than from the flaring insurgency. And yet the numbers produced by the study hardly tell the story. For one, they must be examined against the backdrop of another comprehensive study commissioned by the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, last autumn, which deduced that at least 98,000 Iraqi civilians had died in the ongoing strife.

But most importantly, regardless of whose computation we embrace, mere numbers can hardly capture the madness, bloodshed, terror and insecurity sweeping Iraq from north to south. Undoubtedly, one can confidently argue that the invasion of Iraq has weakened the internal security of the entire region and has manifested itself in desperate terrorist attacks targeting civilians in Europe and elsewhere.

Considering the many scattered lies and forgeries put forth to rationalize the war and to further defend its disastrous aftermath, while keeping in mind the remarkably similar Vietnam fiasco which continues to stain the US reputation like no other, one would think that a more sensible and judicious foreign policy stratagem might prevail.

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG26Ak02.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Everything the Repukes do makes it worse

Condoning torture-look at Bush's threat to veto the spending bill unless Congress takes out anti-torture language.

Doing nothing to really support the troops-sending them back into combat over and over and over and NOT addressing the psychological effects.

Hiding the number of civilian casualties, hiding the faces of the wounded from the American people-but not from the world.

Inflaming Islamic sensibilities by their stupid words and actions-"bomb Mecca"- "we really didn't flush the Qur'an, just peed on it"