It is impossible to know at this point whether there is any connection between these two disturbing events reported yesterday: NATO forces’ mistaken killing of nine boys gathering firewood in Afghanistan; and, a few hours later, the killing of two American soldiers at Frankfurt airport, apparently by a Muslim man of Kosovar origin. We do know that other terror suspects have stated that they acted in response to U.S. policies in the GWOT, in particular the frequent killings of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. It would therefore not be surprising if this were true in the German case. And it is at least possible that the impetus was in fact the horrific NATO shootings in Afghanistan just hours before.
This raises yet again the question of what is cause and what effect in the “war on terror.” Are American policies, which predictably result in large numbers of civilian casualties no matter how great the military’s precautions, in fact reducing the number of terrorists? Do our heartfelt apologies in the wake of such wholly foreseeable errors in fact have any effect on the families of the victims, let alone on the small number of angry and extreme–but not yet violent Muslims–elsewhere in the world? The answer seems likely to be, No. The GWOT is a self-perpetuating policy that increases the amount of terrorism in the world, even as it enriches military establishments, COIN bureaucracies, and all manner of private suppliers of questionable anti-terror services and technologies. (Read the prior article–an amazingly depressing story of yet more waste, fraud, and gullibility in the GWOT.)
My question for Duck readers is: How does such folly come to an end? On the surface, when cause becomes effect, there would seem ample, rational basis to change policies. And there have been any number of additional reasons to halt it recently too: the obvious marginality of al-Qaeda in the massive popular upheavals that have rocked the Middle East and North Africa; recent statements by American officials that the number of al-Qaeda fighters is vanishingly small; Robert Gates’s tacit admission last week that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars should never have been fought; and reports that the military is propagandizing U.S. politicians and thereby citizens to believe that the wars are succeeding. (This article too is worth a full read to see both how some in the military confuse the “mission” with their own ambition–and, a ray of hope, how others sometimes stand up against them).
Any suggestions from Duck readers about literature on this kind of conundrum? How are senseless but self-perpetuating policies, backed by hugely vested interests, ever brought to a halt?
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