Posted by Doug Bandow on 06/24/09 11:16 AM   [Newer: The American People's Fear of Government-Run Health Care] [Older: House Republican Leader Demands Fiscal Responsibility--Snicker, Snicker]

Iraq turns out to be the gift that keeps on giving.  Unfortunately.

Remember how we were promised that the war would "drain the swamp" and end terrorism?  The war may have done the opposite.  It has created a new swamp, spawning terrorists rather than mosquitoes, and sent them out around the world.

Writes Matthew Duss for American Prospect:

Over the past several years, al-Qaeda's fortunes have seriously declined in Iraq. Remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) continue to regularly carry out spectacular attacks, but the Iraq front is no longer seen as the cause celebre that it once was for the global jihad movement. One of the key developments leading to the decline in violence in Iraq was the creation and deputization by U.S. forces of Sunni tribal paramilitaries -- many of them former al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents -- to police their own neighborhoods. Initially referred to as "the Awakening," this phenomenon soon became known as "the Sons of Iraq."

But what of the other "sons of Iraq," namely, the thousands of young men from around the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe radicalized by the Iraq invasion and fed a steady stream of images of U.S. occupation by satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera? Many of these men were inspired to travel to Iraq to join in the fight against the American occupation and the U.S.-supported government -- and others who were unable to go have joined with extremist movements in their home countries.

As the Iraq War wore on, some analysts and historians voiced concern that, in addition to the spread of organizational tactics and technology, which had already begun, the war could give rise to a phenomenon similar to what took place after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Then, thousands of Arab fighters (who had traveled to Afghanistan with the aid and cooperation of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan) returned to their homes across the Middle East, bringing with them newly acquired knowledge of warfare and a battle-hardened commitment to an extreme form of Islam. Writing in Small Wars Journal, Clint Watts notes that "this 'First Foreign Fighter Glut' spawned al Qaeda and a decade of increasingly lethal terrorist attacks leading up to September 11, 2001. ... Left unchecked, the Second Foreign Fighter Glut will produce the next generation of terrorist organizations and attacks" much as the first fueled al-Qaeda.

There is some evidence that this is happening. In the summer of 2008, Andrew Exum, a former Army ranger, now a research fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), published an article in Democracy, examining the phenomenon of foreign fighters leaving Iraq to carry on the war elsewhere. Exum notes the presence of Iraq returnees in the battles which took place in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in Lebanon in May 2007. In addition to the physical return of fighters, Exum, who writes the popular counterinsurgency blog Abu Muqawama, also stresses the extent to which new technologies have exponentially amplified the effects of the Iraq crucible on the wider jihadist movement. "In a wired world," he writes, "jihadists can transmit their experiences -- their stories, their training, their anger-across the Internet." In the "virtual space" of the Internet is where jihadist organizations have made some of their most impressive and potentially consequential advances in spreading their ethos of global Islamic resistance.

So, Iraq kills or wounds tens of thousands of  Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and then sets the stage for future terrorism around the world.  Heck uva' job, President George W. Bush and Neocon warrior-wannabes!

Doug Bandow, American Conservative Defense Alliance

Posted 06/24/09 12:28 PM fredricwilliams Seoul, Korea (south)

If the goal is to have a permanent war on Islam and/or a permanent war on terror, Bush & Company have done an excellent job and Obama & Company have found a way to push the war into Pakistan. The US Government has a different definition of success than we do. Once the 40-year Cold War was over, it took just two years for the US to orchestrate the first war to destroy Iraq (the greatest threat to fearful Israel) followed by an embargo, military confinement, bombing, invasion and occupation -- a war that has now lasted 18 years. Iran is now fearful Israel's next target -- and the U.S. is the weapon of choice. Never-ending war is a tyrant's paradise.

Posted 06/24/09 2:07 PM ifc69 Midland, MI

I think the most important lesson to take from this article is that we need to regulate the internet to prevent terrorists from communicating. ; p Sorry, I'll work on the sarcasm.

Posted 06/24/09 7:45 PM BruceKoerber Cedar Rapids, IA

Apolitical Political Commentary! Wednesday, June 24, 2009 What Is The Modern Day Plague? So what we see is: even if the bozos trying to gain control over the internet are not deliberately serving the unConstitutional coup to silence voices of dissent but are really detecting the use of the internet to disseminate terrorism as mentioned in the article in Democracy by Andrew Exum they are still just trying to stop a problem that they themselves created. When will the ego-driven realize that they create the problems and all of their efforts to solve these same problems later just creates more problems? The cumulative vulgarity of all ego-driven intervention is sickening, it is a modern day plague.

Posted 06/25/09 5:06 PM Glenn Cumming, GA

I'm reminded of Amy Allen's(sp.) rendition of Universal Soldier at the Rally for the Republic last fall, and Dr. Paul's subsequent talk. Without the universal soldier, the tyrant cannot keep making wars. Rejection of military service is the next leg of the path to restoring our republic.