Is America’s Foreign Policy and U.S. Military Interventionism the Cause for Homegrown Terrorists and the Global Jihad Movement?

The Intercept:

A SECRET FBI STUDY found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of “homegrown” terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to “radicalization,” concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts.

The study, reviewed by The Intercept, was conducted in 2012 by a unit in the FBI’s counterterrorism division and surveyed intelligence analysts and FBI special agents across the United States who were responsible for nearly 200 cases, both open and closed, involving “homegrown violent extremists.” The survey responses reinforced the FBI’s conclusion that such individuals “frequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.”

Online relationships and exposure to English-language militant propaganda and “ideologues” like Anwar al-Awlaki are also cited as “key factors” driving extremism. But grievances over U.S. military action ranked far above any other factor, turning up in 18 percent of all cases, with additional cases citing a “perceived war against Islam,” “perceived discrimination,” or other more specific incidents. The report notes that between 2009 and 2012, 10 out of 16 attempted or successful terrorist attacks in the United States targeted military facilities or personnel.

 

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The study echoes previous findings, including a 2011 FBI intelligence assessment, recently released to MuckRock through a public records request, which concluded that “a broadening U.S. military presence overseas” was a motivating factor for a rise in plotted attacks, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That study also found “no demographic patterns” among the plotters.

“Insofar as there is an identifiable motivation in most of these cases it has to do with outrage over what is happening overseas,” says John Mueller, a senior research scientist with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University and author of “Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism.”

“People read news reports about atrocities and become angry,” Mueller said, adding that such reports are often perceived as an attack on one’s own in-group, religion, or cultural heritage. “It doesn’t have to be information from a jihadist website that angers someone, it could be a New York Times report about a drone strike that kills a bunch of civilians in Afghanistan.”

Perpetrators of more recent attacks have latched onto U.S. foreign policy to justify violence.

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The U.S. government has announced plans to spend millions of dollars on “Countering Violent Extremism” initiatives, which are supposed to involve community members in spotting and stopping would-be extremists. These initiatives have been criticized as discriminatory, because they have focused almost exclusively on Muslim communities while ignoring political motivations behind radicalization.

Perhaps more should be done on the propaganda front, promoting positive stories about how much blood and treasure America has expended in “nation building” and in defense of Muslims? In countering the distorted narrative of the Anwar al-Awlakis, ISIS, and the global jihad movement (as well as the anti-Americanism of the Noam Chomskys) and their useful idiots- the “if it bleeds, it leads” media that feeds and fuels it.

Why Our Military is So Hated Around the World:

Here’s a little education for Ted Turner, by way of a Hugh Hewitt interview with Robert Kaplan:

HH: You know, I want to begin in the 9th chapter of this, your second book on the American military, as you were driving out of Timbuktu, 11 hours beyond the gates of Timbuktu. Use that as a metaphor for what you were doing and why you went the places you have gone.

RK: Well, Timbuktu is not the edge of the Earth. The edge of the Earth is miles beyond Timbuktu, north into the heart of the Sahara desert. And I was with a company of American Special Forces officers, about twelve of them, all non-commissioned officers except for a captain. And you would think what is the U.S. military doing in the heart of the Sahara desert. Well, we’re not only in the heart of the Sahara desert, we’re all over the Pacific ocean, we’ll all over South America, and all this is occurring while we are fighting a war in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And what I tried to do in the course of the years in which I embedded with the military was to show the whole thing. Not to ignore Iraq, but not to be limited by it, either, because one big deployment might overstretch us like Iraq, but dozens upon dozens of smaller deployments will do no such thing. So I was with a company of American Special Forces officers who were investigating just what was in the center of the Sahara desert in terms of al Qaeda movements, humanitarian, prospects for humanitarian relief, just getting to know Africa. Because in this global world war on terrorism, really is a global war.

HH: Now your accompanied by, extraordinary in the course of this book, an extraordinary array of Americans, one of which on this particular trip is an Evangelical staff sergeant from Oklahoma who doesn’t want to be identified, because he doesn’t want his deeds to serve himself. I thought that was another metaphor for the extraordinary people you’ve spent the last many years with.

RK: Yeah, the people I…what I did was I didn’t report on anybody in this book. I befriended a lot of people, and revealed them to the reader as they revealed themselves to me. And the best of these people didn’t want any publicity, not because they were afraid of being written up badly, but because they were afraid of getting public recognition for anything they do. For them, the real sweet thing is to do it and not get recognition, if you can believe it. And this Evangelical staff sergeant, he drove most of the way through blistering sandstorms, he slept only six hours, which was interrupted by an hour and a half of guard duty, and he got up the next morning to fit little African children for eyeglasses as part of a civil affairs project that this Special Forces A-team was doing. And just, you know, just dealt with one child, one woman after another throughout the morning without any complaining about lack of sleep or anything.

HH: Let me tell the audience, this is a remarkable read, you’re going to want to get Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, and just an example of detail, “Following sun up, Captain Tory, an Evangelical staff sergeant from Oklahoma, set up an eye clinic inside one of the ruins. They unpack little boxes of adaptable eyewear, an ingenious, low-tech device manufactured by the U.S. Agency for International Development. These were round, Harry Potterish horn-rimmed glasses of zero prescription which increasingly strengthened as you pumped a clear gel solution attached to the frame inside the glass. The SF, Special Forces guys called them, ‘never get laid again glasses,’ because of how they made you look.” Now that has got an eye for detail, pardon the pun, Robert Kaplan, but I guess it is in those very small things, as well as the B-2’s that we’ll talk about later, that the genius in the American military lies.

RK: Yeah, it all lies in the details. For the price of one F-22, you could populate all of Africa with SF-A teams doing humanitarian relief. But that is not necessarily a criticism of an F-22, because I get that later in the book when I talk about the B-2 and other expensive bombers, which are sort of an expensive form of health insurance to keep the Chinese honest about their intentions in Taiwan. But you know, we get bargains in our military budget, and we don’t. The B-2’s, the F-22’s, there’s no bargains there. But in terms of what we can do on the ground in a place like Africa, we get a lot of bargains like this deployment that I embedded on.

Extracted from a post targeted at Paul Bearers:

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Robert Kaplan says,

people have this image of the U.S. military going all over the world as a busybody, propping up dictatorships. It’s so false. In fact, the only regimes we prop up through training missions are of certified democracies, certified by Congress, which we have not imposed on them, that they’ve evolved organically on their own as democracies.

The Savage Wars of Peace, by Max Boot:

Far from being isolationist before World War II and the formation of NATO, America from the very beginning of the Republic intervened in a nearly continual series of civil wars, coups, and hostage rescues. Starting with attacks on the Barbary Coast pirates between 1801 and 1805, the nation has always interfered in other nations’ business far from home.

Two generations of college students have been taught that all such “adventurism” is nothing but imperialism and running-dog capitalism–and Boot does not deny that states naturally send in their forces out of national interest rather than mere idealism. But he shows that the majority of the time the Marines intervened to stop the slaughter of civilians, to retaliate against the killing of Americans and destruction of their property, and to prevent chaos from spreading beyond a country’s borders. While such incursions often served the local property-owning elites and corrupt grandees, such interventionists as Thomas Jefferson, Chester A. Arthur, and Teddy Roosevelt assumed that order and stable governments were usually preferable to mass uprisings, constant revolution, and mob rule.

When natural disasters strike, what does America do? Take advantage of another nation’s misfortune, or come to its rescue, using American military might while draining American taxpayer coffers and making private donations to charities? We did this for earthquake relief in Iran, 2003 just being one year’s example of this:

In the latest U.S. shipment, an American military plane carrying 80 personnel and medical supplies landed early Tuesday in the provincial capital of Kerman. The team reached Bam, 120 miles to the southeast, by midday.

Seven U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo planes have already delivered 150,000 pounds of relief supplies — including blankets, medical supplies and water — making the United States one of the largest international donors.

Pakistan:

Pakistan earthquake relief, the ‘Great Satan’s’ military has delivered 94 tons medical supplies, 1,939 tons of humanitarian supplies, 1,582 tons of equipment, evacuated 15,794 victims..provided doctors, nurses, medicine…..

In addition, we donated a mobile hospital:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2006 – The United States today transferred the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the last unit of its kind in the U.S. Army, to the Pakistan government for continued use in earthquake relief efforts, a Defense Department spokesman said.
The 84-bed hospital, which arrived in Muzaffarabad shortly after the earthquake struck the country on Oct. 8, is valued at $4.6 million, according to the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan.

The hospital consists of the following:

* Primary health care and emergency medical treatment section;
* Surgical suite with two operating tables and sterilization equipment;
* Two intensive care units; I
* Intermediate care ward;
* Minimal care ward;
* Pharmacy;
* Laboratory;
* Radiology units;
* Medical maintenance work area with a supply of repair parts;
* Power-generation system for the entire hospital; and
* Storage containers for packing and moving the hospital.

The hospital has treated more than 20,000 patients and provided about 20,000 vaccinations to about 8,000 patients since October. After the transfer, the American medical personnel will return to their home base in Miesau, Germany, and the Pakistani military will take over the hospital, according to the embassy.

In further progress toward the end of U.S. military relief efforts in Pakistan this spring, the U.S. Navy turned over $2.5 million worth of construction equipment to Pakistan military engineers Feb. 13. The equipment includes three D-7 bulldozers, a 15-ton dump truck, nine 20-ton dump trucks, seven 100-kilowatt generators and four generator skids, according to the embassy.

The U.S. also is donating its two forward-area refueling point systems to the Pakistan government to increase helicopter efficiency during reconstruction.

The U.S. military has been on the ground in Pakistan since Oct. 10, providing relief after a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck the Kashmir region in northern Pakistan Oct. 8, killing more than 70,000 citizens, injuring more than 60,000 and leaving more than 3 million homeless. At the peak of initial relief efforts, more than 1,200 personnel and 25 helicopters provided vital transport, logistics, and medical and engineering support in the affected areas.

Today, 600 U.S. servicemembers continue to provide aviation, medical and engineering assistance to relief and reconstruction efforts.

How do you counter the distorted narrative that the U.S. military and CIA are the biggest terrorists rather than the world’s greatest protectors?

 

A boy seeks shelter behind a U.S. soldier as gunshots ring out following a car bomb explosion in Baghdad. At least 21 were killed in the bombing and 66 wounded, police and hospital officials said.
Khalid Mohammed- APGee…is that Iraqi boy running to the terrible imperialist occupier for any particular reason?

 

This photo, which appeared on the front page of this morning’s edition of The New York Times, shows an Iraqi boy taking cover behind a U.S. soldier as civilians fled the sound of gunshots following a suicide bombing yesterday in central Baghdad that killed at least 21 people and wounded 66 others.Photo taken by Khalid Mohammed, APIt seems the boy understands who to run to for protection…

How do you dispell the distortions and lies about the CIA, Mossad, the U.S. and Israel as funding ISIS, staging 9/11, and creating OBL? Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam? U.S. giving Saddam his chemical weapons? U.S. hypocrites and torturers? By promoting truth and reality.

America’s War of Aggression Against Muslims Confirmed by Release of Abuse Photos

America is to blame for the dysfunction going on in the modern era of the Middle East? Racist America is “holding the Muslim man down”? American imperialism is responsible?

FA has found unclassified evidence from the U.S. Department of Defense (and hat tip to CJ, whose excellent milblog A Soldier’s Perspective is now on inactive duty) showing shocking and graphic day to day activities of the U.S. military’s campaign of aggression against Muslims:

U.S. soldier teases and mocks Afghan children:

U.S. Army Capt. Michael Wikstrom, a chaplain with Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan, shows Afghan children how to blow bubbles during a humanitarian aid delivery mission in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 24, 2009. (DoD photo by Senior Airman Marc I. Lane, U.S. Air Force)
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class John Moyle, the platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon, 554th Military Police Company out of Stuttgart, Germany, gives a child a high-five while providing security during polling site assessments in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan July 1, 2009. The unit is currently attached to Task Force Mountain Warrior, which is assessing polling sites in the province to ensure they are safe for residents. (DoD photo by Pfc. Elizabeth K. Raney, U.S. Army)

Afghan National Army commando Mohammed Jan, a Kandak commander with the 201st Corps, hands humanitarian assistance supplies to residents of a village in the Laghman province of Afghanistan May 23, 2009. The 1st Battalion, 178th Infantry Regiment, Illinois Army National Guard is working with the Afghan National Army to conduct a key leader engagement and to deliver humanitarian assistance to residents to build stronger relationships and fight insurgency. (DoD photo Spc. Jason Dorsey, U.S. Army)
U.S. Army Sgt. Juan Reyes high-fives an Iraqi boy while providing security in Sequor, Iraq, Sept. 9, 2009. Reyes is from the security detachment of 25th Special Troops Battalion, 25th Infantry Division. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Luke P. Thelen, U.S. Air Force)Here we have a well-known U.S. Navy Admiral personally indoctrinating unsuspecting Afghan school girls with pro-U.S. propaganda:
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen hands out notebooks during the opening of the Pushghar Village Girls School in the Panjshir Valley of Afghanistan July 15, 2009. The school was built by Greg Mortenson, a humanitarian and author of “Three Cups of Tea”, to promote and support community-based education for girls in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy)

Click on the link for more such dehumanizing photos and U.S. military atrocities.

And share them with the homegrown jihadis and angry Muslim hell-bent upon being radicalized by anti-U.S., Howard Zinn schoolbooks, Ward Churchill academics, and ISIS propaganda.