Is the US Really Creating New Terrorists in Iraq?

This is of course is the great mainstream Democratic criticism of the Iraq war-- "we're creating new terrorists!"

The problem with this argument is it greatly over-simplifies the real politik of the situation.

Certainly there is active terrorism going on in Iraq, and doubtless there are some foolhardy Muslims jacked up on Jihad who go to Iraq to attack Americans.

But the bigger question implicit here is-- is the US really creating a bunch of new super terrorists who threaten America, a la Al Qaeda?

In other words, by what the US is doing in Iraq, is the US in any sense "growing" Al Qaeda or even fomenting a new super terrorist group ?

By our actions in Iraq, we are undoubtedly creating tens or even hundreds of thousands of people who are mad at the US. These people certainly have the potential to become terrorists. But these people won't become serious terrorists unless they get recruited into a terrorist organization. The fact is, however, that major terrorist organizations are either heavily infiltrated by state-run intelligence agencies or they are essentially subsidiary members of a state-run intelligence agency. A case in point is the relationship between the Pakistani ISI and Al Qaeda.

Thus, one way to view this question is that Iraq won't create new terrorists unless we WANT new terrorists.

And there is reason to believe that the people who hold the real power in the US really want new terrorists. Terrorists are very useful for them, not only to manipulate the US public, but to keep the middle east in turmoil. The more terrorism goes on in the middle east, the more it will promote the development of reactionary and regressive regimes that will conflict with more progressive middle east regimes. The last thing the US wants is a united progressive middle east that would control the bulk of the world's oil supply. Furthermore, backwards-leaning regimes will be more isolated and susceptible to military intervention by the US. Thus, middle eastern terrorism clearly benefits US geo-political interests.

Do most Americans want new terrorists? Of course not. And this is the emotion to which Democrats try to appeal. The problem is that this critique by the Democrats overlooks critical aspects of the phenomenon of terrorism and thus makes Democrats look naive and ineffectual.

Think how effective it would be if an honest Democrat spoke out and said-- "I think this administration WANTS to make new terrorists with their actions in Iraq" and then backed up this claim with the abundant evidence out there as well as explained the clear motive for why the US would do such a thing. Naturally this person would be called a conspiracy theorist-- but if the administration was forced to respond, they would be exposed and thrown on the defensive. And at least truth might see the light of day.

And in this vein, how wonderful would it be if a brave politician spoke up and asked "what exactly is the connection between the CIA and the ISI and Al Qaeda?" and tried to use this as a lever to crack open the truth about 9/11.

I can only dream.

But apart from terrorism-- mostly what we are doing in Iraq is killing people. The US-led invasion of Iraq led to the opening of a Pandora's box of truly evil shit, and the true tragedy of this war is how many thousands of people died early and horrible deaths. Due to (probably intentional) mismanagement of the early post-invasion period, there is really no way to stop the insurgency and no easy way to stop the killing. Although it is not even clear if the US really wants the insurgency to stop, since the ongoing insurgency gives reason for the US to stay-- and the US wants to stay because the US NEEDS the oil in Iraq.

So the killing will go on and on and on.

It is really sick and depressing what the US does in order to keep its economy moving.