Worldwide war and no end in sight

CNN has a story by Pam Benson (CNN Senior National security Producer), and it is fascinating to observe how the US hasn’t a clue why terrorism has mushroomed in the past ten years. Pam Benson points out how the CIA thought they could just “find Osama bin Laden, kill him and bring his head back to the United States in a box on dry ice” and everything would be fixed lickety split. The end game was very clear….destroy al Qaeda and eliminate the Taliban. So simple!
But nine years later things have unravelled and the US is now realizing what many people told them that they have made the situation much worse and much more complex.
Former CIA official John McLaughlin just doesn’t get it either. He says “it will take three things to get there: destroying the al Qaeda leadership, denying safe haven, and changing conditions that give rise to the movement the problems of education, unemployment and the Israeli-Arab conflict”.
I think McLaughlin has it wrong. I believe that terrorism and hate against the west will only stop when we understand that it is not right to ignore international laws and children’s rights when it suits us. For example: The crippling sanctions on Iraq resulted in the deaths of several hundred thousand children.(2002 Unicef report).
This example alone is enough to plant seeds of hatred for the west. There are many other examples including how the Palestinian’s have been brutally suppressed and crippled over the past dozens of years….. not to mention the support to Saudia Arabia with hundreds of billions of dollars in arms sales to keep a corrupt, but US friendly, leadership there in power in order to secure oil flows.
The biggest mistake the US has made has been to not ask why this is happening to them. They have hundreds of military bases around the world where they exert political pressure on almost every region of the world. Simplistic solutions seen by CIA vetern, Gary Schroen is quoted on CNN as saying “the only thing I regret in my long career with the CIA, that we didn’t get Osama bin Laden in 2001 when we had a chance. That son of a bitch is out there still plotting to kill Americans.”
He doesn’t understand for a moment that getting Osama bin Laden will not solve the problem. He doesn’t seem to have a clue that the drone strikes which have killed hundreds, if not thousands of innocent civilian’s, has created a whole new batch of people full of hate for the west.
The US still doesn’t get it that the best way to prevent terrorism is to stop stomping the guts out of people around the world and start reaching out to people. And I don’t mean reaching out with an open hand while holding a club in the other one. (No wonder Obama is in trouble!)
I know I don’t have all the answers…. but this solution has to make more sense than what we are doing now…. spending trillions of dollars, inflicting complete misery and pain abroad and at home.