Belgium bombings and America’s failed war on terror

Recently more than 30 people were killed and dozens injured in terrorist attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station. Brussels is home to the European Union (EU), NATO, international agencies and the Belgian government. In a statement issued on the Amaq agency the Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks. Apparently the attacks were in retaliation for the arrest of Salaq Abdeslam who was suspected of masterminding the deadly Paris bomb attacks. Having made the international terrorist watch list Salaq was shot in the leg during his capture and arrest in Brussels played out live on TV a few days prior to the latest attacks.
The Belgian Prime Minister has rightly called the attacks “blind, violent, and cowardly”, correctly pointing out that since true Moslems are peace loving people the terrorists should not be referred to as radical Islamists but as “Islamized radicals”. Terrorist organizations recruit radical criminal elements teach them little parts of the Holy Koran then send them out to engage in further criminal activities. A situation in which little children, nursing mothers and innocent people are murdered indiscriminately is neither Godly or righteous.
The Jihadist group Islamic State (IS) burst on to the scene in 2014 when it seized large territory in Syria and Iraq. Notorious for its brutality including mass killings, abductions and beheadings in June 2014 the group formally declared the establishment of a caliphate and demanded that Muslims and other jihadist groups worldwide swear allegiance and accept its supreme authority. Islamic states are governments primarily based on the application of sharia law. However unlike caliph-led governments which are imperial despotisms or monarchies, modern Islamic states can incorporate modern political institutions such as elections, parliamentary rule, judicial review and popular sovereignty.
Belgium has struggled with Islamist groups for years and at least 500 Belgian citizens have been lured into fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq. In February 2015 US director for National intelligence James clapper said IS had “somewhere in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 fighters” in Iraq and Syria. Quite surprisingly a significant number of IS fighters are not from either Syria or Iraq.  In October 2015 the US congress was told that IS fighters included over 5,000 foreigners and at least 250 of them were Americans. Naturally the US has vowed not to allow them to succeed.  Many commentators trace Belgium’s problem with Islamists to its decision in the 1970’s to allow Saudi Arabia to construct the city’s great mosque.
In addition to building the mosque the Saudi’s also sent over a large number of imams to preach a hard-line Salafist for of Islam. However the truth is that Islamic fundamentalism only reached its present dangerous heights after the Iraq war. The US government always uses as much force as necessary to defend its interests regardless of the consequences to others. Having appointed itself as the “policeman to the world” unfortunately its interest are not in harmony with world peace.
Republican Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz acknowledges the fact that America has consistently made mistakes in its foreign policy when for purely selfish reasons they got themselves in involved in toppling Middle Eastern governments. The end result of all this is that it has benefitted radical Islamic terrorists. American intervention since the start of the Iraq war has led from one disaster to another and now Europe and the rest of the world is suffering the ill-effects. The middle-east and indeed the world was definitely a safer place when Saddam Hussien of Iraq and Momar Ghadaffi of Libya were in power and Assad was not fighting for his life in Syria. The figures speak for themselves.
In Iraq before 2003 there had not been a single suicide attack since then there have been 1,892. In Pakistan in the fourteen years prior to 9/11 there had been only one suicide attack, whereas in the 14 years since then there have been 486 such attacks. Indeed throughout the world Somalia has had 88, Yemen 85, Libya 29, Nigeria 91, and Syria 165. Although one cannot blame the US for the actions of misguided suicidal youths the fact is that their so called “war on terror” has been an expensive and less than successful enterprise. Between 2002 and 2014 deaths from terrorism in the Middle East increased 4,500%.
Fourteen years after it began the US is on track to have spent six trillion dollars on just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To put that in perspective it works out at about $75,000 for every American household. Even more tragic than the misapplied wasted funds nearly 7,000 US army personnel have died in the process of prosecuting the war. In addition approximately 22 US war veterans commit suicide every day. In all truthfulness the only thing the American war on terror has brought to the world is more war and more terror.