Arab Media Give War on Terrorism an F

The following excerpt is from a commentary posted on NewAmericaMedia.org.

U.S. policy makers and media typically suggest that the seven-year-old "War on Terror" has been a modest if tenuous success and that Americans are safer now than they've ever been.

Arab media, however, offers another perspective. Journalists, commentators, scholars and even former intelligence chiefs – both Western and Eastern – all agree on one thing: The Bush administration's War on Terror has not only failed, but also fueled Muslim outrage and anti-Americanism.

Al Qaeda and other groups seem to be fulfilling the extreme ideology and global message of Osama bin Laden: Engage the Americans and their allies in long wars of attrition on as many fronts as possible.

Many Al Qaeda leaders have been eliminated, but there seems to be no shortage of men willing to take their places.

"Al Qaeda is regrouping in Afghanistan and Pakistan," Abdel Bari Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, told Al Jazeera English. "We have Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda in Africa, Al Qaeda in Europe, Al Qaeda in North Africa and Al Qaeda in Somalia. We do not know where the next branch will be opened."

The argument that occupying Iraq has made Americans safer because it is better to fight the "terrorists" there instead of on U.S. soil is false, Arab media suggests.

Arab and Western scholars told Al Jazeera that invading Iraq to fight "terrorism" is like putting out fire with gasoline. Islamic insurgents have always used liberation from foreign occupation as a rationale for carrying out campaigns of violence.

During the 20th century, millions of Muslims were killed fighting British, French and Italian occupiers. The struggle for liberation in Algeria, Libya, and many other Arab countries is still commemorated in Arabic literature, songs and poetry.

Today, Islamic insurgency groups, including Al Qaeda, use the U.S. occupation of Iraq as a recruiting tool. Muslims are being oppressed, they say, and fighting the oppressors by all means is necessary and justified.

"The U.S. has created a situation, and this is the problem of every occupation," Newsweek Middle East editor Chris Dickey told Al Jazeera English. "It creates a situation where you can't imagine leaving, as a question of security, partially because you have created so much hatred."

Atwan of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper agrees. He told the London-based Arab News Broadcast (ANB) that the United States has no choice but to keep large numbers of soldiers in Iraq to avoid losing it to the insurgents or Iran.

What is important to remember, however, is that Iraq is only one front in the war on terror.

Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden Unit, told Al Jazeera English, "Al Qaeda has achieved its goal in Iraq, which is not to establish some kind of caliphate, but the ability to project influence in the Levant -- into Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel."

Jihadists from Arab nations are moving from Iraq to Lebanon in increasing numbers. According to Alarabiya.net, the Lebanese government rounded up a suspected Al Qaeda cell of 13 men from Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Last year, the Lebanese government fought a long and hard war against Fateh Al Islam, another extremist group in Naher Al Bared refugee camp, only to see at least two similar organizations emerge in other refugee camps.

Al Qaeda freelance organizations have even emerged in Gaza. According to Al Arabiya television, Hamas allows Al Uma Army, which shares the same ideologies as Al Qaeda, to operate in Gaza so long as it does not intervene in Palestinian internal politics and use violence to impose its religious beliefs in Gaza.

In its seventh year, the war in Afghanistan was the first front in the U.S. war on terror.

Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College, told Al Jazeera English, "The Bush administration is making another strategic blunder in Afghanistan by lumping the Pashtun tribes and the Taliban, who are fighting for their identity and liberation from foreign occupation, rightly or wrongly, with Al Qaeda."

Allies for many years, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have a fundamental difference. The Taliban calls for local jihad against foreign occupiers, and Al Qaeda calls for global jihad against America and its "crusader alliance."

Many Arab scholars argue that the United States should negotiate a power sharing deal with the Taliban as a way to re-establish security in the country.

Journalist and political writer Ahmad Asfahani told Arab News Broadcast, "There is a large segment of the Afghan people who will not accept the presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan and will not accept a government that is linked to the occupation."

He continued, the "Taliban's participation in the establishment of a new Afghan regime that can govern without relying on foreign occupation is the only option to stop the bloody conflict in the country."

Asfahani explained, "The Taliban movement is no longer just a former regime, it rather represents a large segment of the Afghan population."

Instead, the United States continues to rely heavily on its military might, which fuels the rage and violence against U.S. forces and the Afghan government.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has always stood by his American allies, and has even defended U.S. and NATO attacks that left civilians dead. But recently Al Jazeera English showed a video of him breaking into tears as he pleaded for the Americans to stop bombing civilian areas.

On Oct. 1, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Afghanistan, Wali Allah Shahin, said that Karzai called for reconciliation with the Taliban movement and asked Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to help mediate the negotiations with the Taliban.

The American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, also did not rule out reconciliation with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. During a trip to Washington D.C., he said: "Ultimately, the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a political solution not a military solution." The Bush administration has not respond to the comment.

While Americans focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia is a growing hotbed of anti-Americanism and radicalism. Al Jazeera senior political analyst Marwan Bishara said, "the Bush administration supported Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia under the guise of the War on Terror. It even supported the very same warlords who humiliated the U.S. 18 years earlier by dragging the bodies of American servicemen in the streets of Mogadishu."

The United States however supported Ethiopia when it invaded Somalia and overthrew the Islamic Courts Union.

This only deepened the Somali people's resentment toward the United States, according to Rufus.
Now, Somalia -- like many other Muslim and Arab countries -- is a far less safe place for American and Western interests than it was before the War on Terror, and another center of anti-Americanism and radicalism.

Jalal Ghazi is the associate producer of the Peabody Award-winning show "Mosaic: World News from the Middle East," and writer of the column “Eye on Arab Media” for New America Media.

Source:  NewAmericaMedia.org

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