...the war in Iraq didn't attract terrorists, it created them:
Interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.
A separate Israeli analysis [by Global Research in International Affairs] of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, 'the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq.'
On the other hand, terrorism is losing support among Muslims:
Today, the voices of Mashad and activists in other Arab capitals are largely mute when it comes to Iraq.
They still fervently oppose the US presence. But they are increasingly put off by the brutal tactics used by the insurgency against civilians. Similarly, many Muslims are angry over the tactics used by terrorists in the name of Islam.
And did you know that the Global War On Terrorism is over? It's now been rebranded as the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism! With a new acronym and everything!
But the shallowness gets deeper still. The Times story doesn't notice what appears to be the driving force behind the new slogan—a desire for a happier acronym.Look at the first letters of Global War on Terrorism. GWOT. What does that mean; how is it pronounced? Gwot? Too frivolously rowdy, like a fight scene in a Marvel comic book (Bam! Pfooff! Gwot!). Gee-wot? Sounds like a garbled question (Gee what?).
Then look at Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Its acronym is GSAVE—i.e., gee-save. We're out to save the world, see, not wage war on it. Or, as national security adviser Stephen Hadley puts it in the Times piece, "We need to dispute both the gloomy vision and offer a positive alternative."
-- Say G-WOT?
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
