Sam Smith 20011 - Based on facts and not posturing,
the greatest damage to the United States over the past decade has been
done by its politicians and their embedded media rather than Al Qaeda
and similar groups. For example:
- During this
period the United States government has not taken a single significant
step to reduce hostility towards it in the Muslim world, thereby
serving as a continuous de facto recruiting tool for Al Qaeda et al.
After all, the best way to reduce the appeal of the most extreme is to
meet the concerns of the most rational.
-
Excessive spending for unnecessary and counterproductive military
conflict has done far more damage to the country's fiscal state than Al
Qaeda could even imagine.
- The dismantling of the
Constitution and the steady drift towards a police state damages our
safety or freedoms, and supports the arguments of Al Qaeda et al.
-
Finally, and hardly ever mentioned, the US government has been over
three times more deadly to its citizens due to its policies than has Al
Qaeda and similar groups. In addition, as this rare and remarkable
2009 chart by Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy illustrates, we have also killed over a quarter million Muslims, hardly a good approach to a safer America.
In
short, our policies over the past decade have been probably the most
counterproductive and damaging to the country we claim to be defending
that America has ever pursued.
