He’s only about a decade behind the times, but it’s good to see CIA director John Brennan acknowledging that bad foreign policy can make us less safe by angering and encouraging the very people we’re trying to stop. Here’s the quote, via The Intercept:
I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests.
Brennan here is recognizing what libertarians and other proponents of responsible foreign policy like Ron Paul have been saying for years.
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Here’s how the victim of one American bomb strike put it (emphasis added):
“Just six days ago, my village was struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor farmers,” Farea Al-Muslimi told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing on the legality of the drone war. “The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic bombings in Boston last week tore your hearts and also mine.”
“What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village,” al-Muslimi said, “one drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America,” adding that he has “seen Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula use US strikes to promote its agenda and try to recruit more terrorists.”
What Brennan, Paul, and I are describing is blowback, a term that was actually invented by the CIA to describe the unintended, negative consequences of a foreign policy action. Acknowledging blowback doesn’t mean blaming the victim of terrorist attacks, but it does require us to examine our foreign policy to see if—in provoking already volatile populations—we’re actually making ourselves less safe.
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http://rare.us/story/cia-director-agrees-with-ron-paul-admits-bad-foreign-policy-can-make-us-less-safe/
