It Is Who We Are

Fred Kaplan has an essay investigating why terrorists as a whole and suicide bombers in particular follow the call to jihad. It is a piece worth reading but I tend to disagree with his assessment. This paragraph in particular is off the mark:

President George W. Bush frequently depicts the foreign Arabs in Iraq as comrades of the 9/11 hijackers, enemies of freedom who might be wreaking havoc here if they weren't fighting over there. Yet if the Arabs in Paz's and Obaid's studies are typical, Bush's portrait is off the mark. Their calls to arms may be drenched in Pan-Islamic rhetoric. Those doing the calling—Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—may have more cataclysmic ambitions. But the young fanatics on the ground, those streaming across the Iraqi border, seem motivated more by the classic goals of national liberation movements.

Is Kaplan saying that if the jihadi's were not fighting in Iraq, they'd be back home in Saudi Arabia not committing acts of terror? That's highly doubtful. If we did not oust Saddam, the call for jihad would have these would be terrorists infiltrating New York, Miami and LA.

More:

The most vital lesson Americans can draw from this sorry saga, in retrospect, is that we shouldn't initiate foreign adventures unless they involve interests worth considerable sacrifice. But a more immediate—and regrettable—lesson is that, having blundered our way into Iraq, we can't hand these bastards a victory (which is what it would be) by giving in to their demands. It would only embolden them further the next time our interests clash.

The freedom of an oppressed country is not worth considerable sacrifice? As for emboldening them further, didn't we embolden them when we cut and ran from Somalia, allowed the bombing of the Khobar Towers and African embassies and the attack on the USS Cole to go without a response? We bombed a known aspirin factory in the Sudan and a few empty tents in Afghanistan. The empty rhetoric spewed from Clinton loyalists that we were an hour late getting bin-Laden is utter garbage.

Lastly, Kaplan takes it as gospel, as does much of the Kool-aid drinking left, that we blundered into Iraq. Bush said from the beginning that it would take years and that we'd rather fight them there then here. That seems to have been the case.

Update: I would add the above:

In an interview with Reuters, Bakri described Osama bin Laden, leader of the radical Islamist network al Qaeda, as "a sincere man who fights against evil forces."

Bakri said he would like Britain to become an Islamic state but feared he would be deported before his dream was realized.

"I would like to see the Islamic flag fly, not only over number 10 Downing Street, but over the whole world," he said.

Update 2: They also hate homosexuals.

Yeah, they hate us because we invaded Iraq...bullshit!