Why on earth would the United States arm the Libyan opposition if it includes members of Al Qaeda? Part of the reason is because President Obama and his aides have a myopic view of what causes terrorism. Most of us believe that ideologies and belief systems lead people to make the choice to kill other people in cold blood. Ideas have consequences. But President Obama and Susan Rice, his Ambassador the UN and a moving force behind the Libyan intervention think otherwise.
President Obama, when he was candidate Obama in 2008, called for a global Marshall Plan which he said would protect us from terrorist attacks. As a Senator he supported the Global Poverty Act, which would double the amount of American foreign aid we send to the developing world. He has claimed that terrorism “grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.” As he wrote in the Hyde Park Herald shortly after the 9/11 attacks, terrorists “respond to alienation and perceived injustice with murderous nihilism.” They are reacting to the injustices around them.
Those views are echoed by President Obama’s Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. In an academic article published in 2005, Rice and co-author Corinne Graff posit that terrorism is “a threat borne of both oppression and deprivation.” Wars are largely the result of poverty, they say. “The risk of conflict onset rises and its average duration increases with decreasing per capita GDP, rates of economic growth, and secondary school enrollment, or with higher child mortality rates.” She never quite explains why a rich country like Saudi Arabia produces terrorists but a poor one like Mali doesn’t. I don’t see Bangladesh or Niger producing a lot of suicide bombers.
So if we get the Libyan GNP to go up, all those Al Qaeda supporters will throw down their arms and become democrats!
If you can’t understand the enemy, how on earth are you going to figure out a plan to beat them?!
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