On August 25, 2017, a raid involving Somali and U.S. forces took the lives of 10 civilians, including 3 children. Last Saturday (October 14, 2017), in an apparent revenge attack in Mogadishu, two truck bombs killed at least 300 people and injured about an equal number. A report yesterday suggests revenge as a motive:
“Following the raid, in which three children aged between six and 10 died, local tribal elders called for revenge against the Somali government and its allies.
“Not only was the bomber from the specific community targeted by the raid, but the investigation is also uncovering a series of other links to the town where it took place.”
This suggestion of revenge-motivated blowback is definitely pertinent. A U.N. study dated 2017 and titled “Journey to Extremism in Africa” questioned “495 individuals who voluntarily joined violent extremist groups and 78 individuals who were recruited by force; a secondary reference group included 145 individuals with no affiliation to violent extremist groups.” These groups included those targeted by U.S. forces: Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab, ISIL, Al-Qaida, and others.
Among the key findings is that
“A striking 71 percent pointed to ‘government action’, including ‘killing of a family member or friend’ or ‘arrest of a family member or friend’, as the incident that prompted them to join.”
Also: “State security-actor conduct is revealed as a prominent accelerator of recruitment, rather than the reverse.”
The U.S. government has instituted what we may call the “American way” of killing terrorists, which frequently makes mistakes and kills innocent civilians. This catalyzes many into joining terrorist groups, who are potential recruits for other key reasons discussed in the report.
This process of producing more terrorists than the number being killed has been suggested many times in the past, even by high officials in the U.S. military. However, sadly, the process continues, finding new countries in which to practice the American way and augmenting it in others.
American interventions in foreign lands serve a large variety of special interest groups, such as wealthy campaign contributors, foreign aid officials, arms merchants and producers, private contractors, Pentagon planners, intelligence technicians, agricultural producers, academic researchers, special forces, CIA operatives, etc., but they do not serve the common people of the affected countries or those of America. From our perspective, as common people not in government and not part of the intervention enterprises of the federal government, these interventions can and do go wrong in a great many ways, as measured against the goals that we are told are the official rationales. The war on terrorist groups and the wars on various countries labeled as terrorist turn out to produce more terrorism than ever. By producing an ever-larger supply of terrorists, they are taxpayer-subsidized full employment acts for the special interests, the so-called “swamp”.
American interventions in foreign lands should be terminated, lock, stock and barrel.
7:25 pm on October 18, 2017
