Saturday, March 24, 2007

Failed States & The War On Terror

In his Enemy Combatant Status review hearing, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is accused of being a member of the terrorist cell that carried out the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, admitted to having spent three months at an al-Qaeda training camp. When asked why he had gone to the camp, which he described as having an open-door policy, here's what he said:

Because I am from Africa, and ah- my country it was our neighbors countries, most of them have problems. And those who get most problems, who don't have military training. So I wanted this for self-defense. Because in Tanzania, we didn't have any problem but our neighbors, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo and other countries. They have problems.

The causal relationship between poverty and terrorism is overblown. But the one between failed states and terrorism isn't. Unfortunately, we're too busy creating more failed states to seriously address the ones that already exist as a critical component of a global anti-terrorism strategy.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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