The Effects of Counter-terrorism Strategy

World powers in their race of increasing power and influence, are exploiting the resourceful or strategically significant states and destabilizing them in a very systematic way. They consider it right to interfere in other state’s internal matters, in the name of counter-terrorism strategy, and by this they extirpate their political and social fabric. Excessive use of force in GWOT also caused the intensification of terrorism because it created a sense of estrangement and deprivation among the people who ultimately went for vengeance. It is obvious that if someone spend years in invading, bombing and imposing tyranny, some of them will want payback.

There is a reason why USA and NATO countries are being targeted and Korea, Brazil aren’t. Terrorists do not pick states by just their names, they conduct terror activities having some reasons and agenda. How one could think that Spain’s and the U.K.’s participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq played no causal role in the 2004 train bombing in Madrid and 2005 bombing in London. British intelligence officials acknowledge that link as well.

U.S. policies such as Guantanamo and torture were key factors in how Muslims become radicalized against the U.S. In its statement claiming responsibility for the attack on Paris, ISIS invoked multiple religious justifications for the violence but also said the France was their target due to their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in Iraq and Syria. ISIS also claimed responsibility for an attack on a Russian jet as retaliation for Russian airstrikes in Syria, as well as an attack on Lebanon as a response to Hezbollah’s violence.

Even in those cases where religious extremism rather than anger over Western violence seems to be the primary cause such as the Charlie Hebdo murders, done to avenge what the attackers regarded as blasphemous cartoons, the evidence is clear that the attackers were radicalized by indignation over U.S. atrocities in Islamic states.

Pointing out that Western violence is a key causal factor in anti-Western terrorism is not to say it is the only cause. The whole point of the argument is that they are not forced or compelled or acting out of reflex; the point is that they have decided that the only valid and effective response to Western attacks on and interference in Muslim societies is to attack back.

When the Times Square bomber was asked by a friend about the prospect of peaceful protest against U.S. violence and interference in Muslim countries, he replied: "Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?" One can object the validity of this reasoning but can’t deny that the decision to engage in this violence is the reasoning process in action.