[Vision2020] Al-Qaeda Backs McCain, Part II

[Chasuk]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26kristof.html?em

The Endorsement From Hell
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

John McCain isn't boasting about a new endorsement, one of the very,
very few he has received from overseas. It came a few days ago:

"Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," read a
commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely
linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group's propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting
helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda's
apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated.

"The transcendent challenge of our time [is] the threat of radical
Islamic terrorism," Senator McCain said in a major foreign policy
speech this year, adding, "Any president who does not regard this
threat as transcending all others does not deserve to sit in the White
House."

That's a widespread conservative belief. Mitt Romney compared the
threat of militant Islam to that from Nazi Germany or the Soviet
Union. Some conservative groups even marked "Islamofascism Awareness
Week" earlier this month.

Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn't
a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White
House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman
of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al
Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in
the coming days to tip the election to him.

"From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for
recruiting," said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more
likely to continue those policies.

An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely,
fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions
and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In
contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and
a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give
Al Qaeda recruiters fits.

During the cold war, the American ideological fear of communism led us
to mistake every muddle-headed leftist for a Soviet pawn. Our myopia
helped lead to catastrophe in Vietnam.

In the same way today, an exaggerated fear of "Islamofascism" elides a
complex reality and leads us to overreact and damage our own
interests. Perhaps the best example is one of the least-known failures
in Bush administration foreign policy: Somalia.

Today, Somalia is the world's greatest humanitarian disaster, worse
even than Darfur or Congo. The crisis has complex roots, and Somali
warlords bear primary blame. But Bush administration paranoia about
Islamic radicals contributed to the disaster.

Somalia has been in chaos for many years, but in 2006 an umbrella
movement called the Islamic Courts Union seemed close to uniting the
country. The movement included both moderates and extremists, but it
constituted the best hope for putting Somalia together again. Somalis
were ecstatic at the prospect of having a functional government again.

Bush administration officials, however, were aghast at the rise of an
Islamist movement that they feared would be uncooperative in the war
on terror. So they gave Ethiopia, a longtime rival in the region, the
green light to invade, and Somalia's best hope for peace collapsed.

"A movement that looked as if it might end this long national
nightmare was derailed, in part because of American and Ethiopian
actions," said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College. As
a result, Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism have surged, partly
because Somalis blame Washington for the brutality of the Ethiopian
occupiers.

"There's a level of anti-Americanism in Somalia today like nothing
I've seen over the last 20 years," Professor Menkhaus said. "Somalis
are furious with us for backing the Ethiopian intervention and
occupation, provoking this huge humanitarian crisis."

Patrick Duplat, an expert on Somalia at Refugees International, the
Washington-based advocacy group, says that during his last visit to
Somalia, earlier this year, a local mosque was calling for jihad
against America — something he had never heard when he lived
peacefully in Somalia during the rise of the Islamic Courts Union.

"The situation has dramatically taken a turn for the worse," he said.
"The U.S. chose a very confrontational route early on. Who knows what
would have happened if the U.S. had reached out to moderates? But that
might have averted the disaster we're in today."

The greatest catastrophe is the one endured by ordinary Somalis who
now must watch their children starve. But America's own strategic
interests have also been gravely damaged.

The only winner has been Islamic militancy. That's probably the core
reason why Al Qaeda militants prefer a McCain presidency: four more
years of blindness to nuance in the Muslim world would be a tragedy
for Americans and virtually everyone else, but a boon for radical
groups trying to recruit suicide bombers.