In my previous post, in which I focused on the news of US troops engaging in combat in Syria, I may have sounded like I was passing lightly over the news that US Special Forces are being trained in counterinsurgency techniques by Israel - more specifically in assassination. When I said this wasn't necessarily bad news in and of itself, I was thinking of the strategy of targeting leaders of well-known groups in the context of a full-blown, well-planned counterinsurgency effort. Which is a long way from the current approach Bush and Rummy are taking in Iraq.
I also don't know how this particular strategy is affected by international law, particularly those that apply to the US as an official occupying power in Iraq.
But the reaction of Juan Cole, someone realy really does know something about "the Arab mind," makes me wonder if what I did say wasn't an "open mouth, insert foot" kind of comment. Giving some historical background on how the senior Bush Administration incorporated an awareness of the realities of the Arab-Israeli conflict into his Gulf War diplomacy, Cole warns about the lack of such an awareness by this Bush Administration. And he is concerned that it will affect international efforts against al-Qaeda badly:
<< If he [the current President Bush] is letting the US effort in Iraq be tarred with the brush of Israeli occupation, he is actually acting as the world's most prominent recruiting agent for al-Qaeda in the Muslim world. Because that is al-Qaeda's message to angry young Muslim men who feel humiliated by US power and by Israeli brutality in the West Bank and Gaza. Al-Qaeda says, the Americans are not in Iraq to bring democracy. They are bringing Israeli hegemony to the Middle East.
<< It was ridiculous. Until the story broke and gave it legitimacy. >>
And Cole asks a very relevant question:
<< The tragic thing is that the Sharon government's Iron Fist policies do not work (if by "work" you mean "lead to resolution of conflict and make people safer"). ... So now is the time for the US military to suddenly adopt these tactics? >>
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