This is a question. I’m not saying, ‘This is what happened, and I’m going to debate you on it.’ I’m really curious. But I can see this turning into a debate so I’m posting here.
Did the U.S. teach terrorists the wrong lesson? When the hostages were taken in Iran, Carter was ineffective. His rescue operation literally went up in flames. But at least he tried. He was just not a good military commander. It seems that the message terrorists (State-sponsored and otherwise) received was that the U.S. could be held hostage with little fear of retribution. Lesson: A superpower can be held at bay with little risk.
Under Reagan U.S. Marines were sent to Lebanon as ‘peacekeepers’. When a suicide bomber killed over 200 of them, Reagan pulled us out of Lebanon. Lesson: Kill some Americans and the U.S. will go away.
Clinton had us in Somalia. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Send U.S. soldiers to provide humanitarian relief. But ‘warlords’ were getting the food and using it to control the Somali people and this changed the mission from ‘feed the starving people’ to ‘get Mohammed Adid’. Adid’s people learned how to use RPGs to shoot down our helicopters and dead Americans were dragged through the streets. Not long afterward Clinton withdrew us from Somalia. Lesson: Kill some Americans and the U.S. will go away.
In Bosnia UN peacekeepers were under strict rules that basically forced them to sit by and watch while the combatants killed each other. (U.S. airstrikes notwithstanding.) Lesson: If you want to fight, the UN isn’t much of an obstacle.
Osama bin Laden was angry that there were U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia. It seems that he looked at the ‘history lessons’ and decided that if he hurt Americans we’d go away. But the 1979 Hostage Crisis did not kill American civilians. The attacks in Lebanon and Somalia were against military forces. The 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center targeted civilians. By choosing to terrorise civilians instead of striking military targets, ObL did not frighten Americans into going home. He frightened us into attacking.
Now we’re in Iraq. While a lot of people are happy Saddam Hussein is gone, they’re angry that we’re still there. It looks like they’re usign the same tactic that worked in Somalia and Lebanon: Kill enough Americans and we’ll go away. I wonder if we had not ‘backed down’ before, if we would be in this damned fool war now? I wonder if the WTC bombing and aerial attacks would have happened?
Again, I’m seeking information; not a debate. But feel free to debate amongst yourselves so that I can gain this information.