I believe what the Pentagon and all the military contractors and corporations involved in our interventionist foreign policy fear most is that the American people will learn the terrible truth about terrorism itself.
That most of it is in fact caused by our hundred year old interventionist policy and not Islamic fundamentalism.
For instance . . .
New research provides strong evidence that suicide terrorism such as that of 9/11
is particularly sensitive to foreign military occupation, and not Islamic fundamentalism or any ideology independent of this crucial circumstance. Although this pattern began to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, a wealth of new data presents a powerful picture.
More than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation, according to
extensive research [co-authored by James K. Feldman - former professor of decision analysis and economics at the Air Force Institute of Technology and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies] that we conducted at the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Terrorism, where we examined every one of the over 2,200 suicide attacks across the world from 1980 to the present day. As the United States has occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, which have a combined population of about 60 million, total suicide attacks worldwide have risen dramatically -- from about 300 from 1980 to 2003, to 1,800 from 2004 to 2009. Further, over 90 percent of suicide attacks worldwide are now anti-American. The vast majority of suicide terrorists hail from the local region threatened by foreign troops, which is why 90 percent of suicide attackers in Afghanistan are Afghans.
<snip>
The first step is recognizing that occupations in the Muslim world don't make Americans any safer -- in fact, they are at the heart of the problem.
<snip>
But surely Pape and his team of University of Chicago researchers are wrong. Surely other security experts disagree, right?
No.
The top security experts - conservative hawks and liberal doves alike - agree that waging war in the Middle East
weakens national security and creates
increases terrorism. See
this,
this,
this,
this,
this and
this.
As one of the top counter-terrorism experts (the former number 2 counter-terrorism expert at the State Department) told me, starting wars against states which do not pose an
imminent threat to America's national security increases the threat of terrorism because:
One of the principal causes of terrorism is injuries to people and families.
(Take another look at the painting above).
And its not only war in general as an abstract concept. The
methods we're using to wage war are increasing terrorism.
SOURCE
"Methods" that for the most part sane level headed conservatives before the rise of the neocons would have never accepted.
This little bit of truth is the
last thing the neocons and their faithful followers want us to learn as it's the cornerstone of their argument to keep on invading and occupying muslim countries in the name of "fighting terrorism". If nothing else I hope this one truth finally comes out and takes root.
