Source: Independent Institute
Author: Ivan Eland

08/29/05

The longer the United States stays in Iraq, the more trained Islamic jihadists will be let loose on the world. In the Islamic faith, Muslims are required to repel any 'infidel' invader from Muslim lands. Islamist fighters from all over the world came to help fuel the fierce resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Russian incursions into Chechnya. The Bush administration should have anticipated the same in Iraq, a nation that harbored no anti-American terrorists before the U.S. invasion. The U.S. invasion and occupation there have since been a recruiting poster for Islamic radicals worldwide. Also, by giving the jihadists valuable combat experience fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, the administration has unwittingly created a training ground for future anti-U.S. terrorist attacks -- much like the U.S.-sponsored anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan provided training for al Qaeda's terrorist strikes....

Link: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1558


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp