Guest Post: Nice Work Creating New Terrorists, You Morons

Guest Post: Nice Work Creating New Terrorists, You Morons

Preface: This is admittedly somewhat peripheral to economics and business. However, terrorist attacks cost many billions of dollars in damage, and could severely depress consumer sentiment and “animal spirits”. And, as I have previously written, unnecessary wars hurt the economy. See this Confirmed: Defense Spending Creates Fewer Jobs Than Other Types of Spending;
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/confirmed-defense-spending-creates-less.html
and this High-Level CIA Officers: "Reform" of Intelligence Agencies Has Made It MORE DIFFICULT to Stop Terroris
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/.

American civilian and military leaders have been creating new terrorists through their:

(1) Use of torture

and

(2) Killing of innocent civilians- especially children – in Arabic countries.

Torture

A high-level American Special Ops interrogator says that information obtained from torture is unreliable, and that torture just creates more terrorists. Indeed, he says that torture of innocent Iraqis by Americans is the main reason that foreign fighters started fighting against Americans in Iraq in the first place.

A former FBI interrogator — who interrogated Al Qaeda suspects — says categorically that torture does not help collect intelligence. On the other hand he says that torture actually turns people into terrorists.

A 30-year veteran of CIA’s operations directorate who rose to the most senior managerial ranks, says:

“This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work — it doesn’t — but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.”

Former counter-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke says that America’s indefinite detention without trial and abuse of prisoners is a leading Al Qaeda recruiting tool.

A former U.S. interrogator and counterintelligence agent, and Afghanistan veteran said,

Torture puts our troops in danger, torture makes our troops less safe, torture creates terrorists. It’s used so widely as a propaganda tool now in Afghanistan. All too often, detainees have pamphlets on them, depicting what happened at Guantanamo.

The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously found:

“The administration’s policies concerning [torture] and the resulting controversies … strengthened the hand of our enemies.”

Two professors of political science have demonstrated that torture increases, rather than decreases, terrorism.

Killing of Innocent Civilians

The former number 2 counter-terrorism expert at the State Department says that military attacks in Iraq increase terrorism.

Indeed, Al Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until the U.S. invaded that country.

After the U.S. military handcuffed and then killed a bunch of Afghan kids, thousands of Afghans are protesting the brutal killings, chanting ‘Death to America!’.

Nice work creating new terrorists, you morons.

Anyone who thinks this is a partisan issue should read this. Can Nobel Prize Winner Obama At LEAST Stop the Torture?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/12/can-nobel-prize-winner-obama-at-least.html

In related news, not only are the U.S. government’s actions creating more terrorists, but “reforms” made to the intelligence agencies have made it MORE DIFFICULT to stop the terrorists they’ve created.

Idiots.

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