The Root of Terrorism: Foreign Military Occupation

A little while back, in an American Studies course I am taking we began learning about US involvement in The War on Terror. And after learning more in depth about the attacks of 9/11, I couldn't help but wonder (as I had often wondered before because I never seemed to receive an explanation from teachers): what could lead someone to do something as horrible as terrorism? In this blog and the next couple of blogs following it, we will be exploring this question.

After doing some research, I came across this website by author and historian William Blum who believes that the attacks were due to "envy and irrational hatred". President Bush would agree as he is quoted as saying, "we were attacked because we are beautiful people, spreading freedom around the world". While I don't think that the cause of the attacks was due to Americans beauty, I think there could be some truth in the president's second point. That is,  if by "spreading freedom" he really means foreign military occupation, coups, and other military means to spread and maintain democracy. Oh and of course making sure we acquire some valuable resources (oil) along the way.

Remember him?

Robert Pape, professor of Political Science at University of chicago and author of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It, has some valuable insight on the causes of terrorism, "suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign--over 95 percent of all the incidents--has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw." Americans often blame Islam (and sometimes even other religions from Southeast Asia such as Sikhism) for the 9/11 attacks, and while yes, the people who committed the attacks were Muslim extremists, I agree with Mr. Pape that foreign military occupation is a at the root of terrorism. Where as, religious factors are merely the surface.

This brings to mind a clip from the movie The Hurt Locker, a movie about an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team during the Iraq war. The screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a U.S. Army EOD team in Iraq and I think that he included this scene to illustrate the effect that US military occupation of foreign countries can have on the citizens of the country.

The tail end of the clip illustrates this when the man in the bomb suit (Jeremy Renner) says, "Well if he wasn't an insurgent, he sure the hell is now." Occupying foreign countries causes tension between the local populations and US troops which then causes outrage and anger towards the US government, and this clip shows how it can unfold on a personal level.

The government has spent over $1.28 billion and over 2,333,972 American military personnel have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The exact number of civilian casualties isn't known but the amount of documented civilian casualties is well over 100,000. All the troops, all the humvees, the drones and deaths have yes, stopped some terrorists, but the have created a whole bunch more in their path. And I don't think this should be a surprise. When over 100,000 civilians have died, anger seems like a logical response. I know I'm certainly angry that our military killed all those innocent people. It appears to me to be the epitome of a vicious cycle. Spending money and deploying troops seems to result in the need for more money spent on defense and more troops. This begs the question, is there another way to fight terrorism without also fanning it's flames? This question should be kept in mind over the next couple of blogs as we explore the roots of terrorism further. And, as always, if you have any ideas, arguments, or criticisms, please feel free to add to the conversation.