7 Terror Groups That Exist Because of Bush

This post has been updated and republished here: http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/blog2/127

The following is for archival purposes:

Creating terrorists runs in President Bush’s blood. After all, Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, invested in Third Reich’s rise to power. So it should not come as a shock that President Bush is directly responsible for the creation of terrorist organizations, that otherwise would have never existed.

Listed below are seven terror organizations that exist as a direct result of President Bush’s involvement in world politics:

1) Al Qaeda in Iraq Previously “Unity and Jihad”, started in 2003
We’ll start with the most obvious. Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that vicious in-fighting prevents them from uniting and becoming a world power. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, all hated each other before we invaded Iraq.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal warlord who aimed to destroy anything that threatened his power. This includes Al Qaeda. It is unthinkable that Al Qaeda in Iraq would ever have existed without Bush first overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To this end, Bush contributed to Al Qaeda’s efforts significantly, by giving them the opportunity to cross borders never before imagined.

The Jordanian Palestinian Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi established cells in Iraq soon after the commencement of the U.S. led Operation Iraqi Freedom. He formalized his group in April 2004 to bring together jihadists and other insurgents in Iraq fighting against US and Coalition forces. Zarqawi and his group helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Iraqi resistance. The group adopted its current name after its October 2004 merger with Osama Bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda.

Bush single handedly united every radical Islamic militant group by destroying the one thing they couldn’t do by themselves: get rid of Saddam Hussein.

2) Ansar al-Islam (Arabic for “Supporters of Islam”)
Ansar al-Islam now operates as far into Europe as Germany and Sweden. This group promotes radical interpretation of Islam. It was a rag tag band of nobodies before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Their leader was nothing more than the American equivalent of a mayor, leading a few villages in a border town of Iraq. America chased them out of Iraq, into Iran. Just months before, Iran would have executed all of them. But now, united under a common goal against America, the fleeing militants were welcomed and housed. The Ansar al-Islam group returned from Iran several years later fully stocked, fully emboldened, and are now most noted for their car bombings.

Remember, before the war, Iran and Iraq were at a stand off as a result of the Iran-Iraq War.

3) Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah (Arabic: Group of the Protectors of Sunnah)
You know Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah from their videotapes of American beheadings. Jamaat Ansar al-Sunnah is a loose coalition of insurgent groups, brought together in 2003 to fight western forces.

Several of their more well-known bombings were carried out by non-Iraqis, showing that not only former Iraqis are spawning new terrorists groups in the wake of America’s invasion.

They are most notorious for their kidnapings and ambushing. They have carried out bloody attacks against high-profile targets which include the Turkish embassy in Baghdad, the US Military installation in Ramadi, police stations, and airports.

4) Mahdi Army
Mahdi Army was created by the Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in June 2003. Saddam Hussein detested the al-Sadr’s family (as in, Saddam killed three of al-Sadr’s family members). Before Saddam’s ouster, al-Sadr was a simple theologian of no remarkable future.

When Saddam was ousted, an interim government was put into place. al-Sadar voiced opposition, saying he had more legitimacy than the coalition-appointed government. He declared a shadow government which gained immediate popularity amongst the local populous.

The group rose to international prominence on April 4, 2004 when it spearheaded the first major armed confrontation against the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq.

By 2007, the U.S. estimates that the Mahdi Army has 60,000 militarized followers (no data yet for 2008). His following is so strong that the Iraq government recognizes diplomatic measures with him.

5) Iran
From 1980 to 1988, Saddam led Iraq in a war against Iran. Before and after the official war, Saddam attacked Iran consistently. To put it bluntly, Saddam hated Iran. But since Saddam is out of the picture, Iran has since allied with the rest of the Middle East, and is now attending to “more important” things other than strife with Iraq. The result: Record missile testing, unprecedented hostility towards Israel, and the ability to focus on nuclear proliferation.

6) The “new” Al-Qaeda
Before 9/11, Bush made common cause with the Taliban in order to wage the war on drugs. The highlighted example is Bush’s decision in May 2001 to financially reward Afghanistan’s infamous Taliban government for its edict ordering a halt to the cultivation of opium poppies. Four months before 9/11, Bush gave the Taliban $43 Million. (Colin Powell suggested and Bush approved)

As of today, most of that $43 million has gone directly towards arming Al-Qaeda and waging the Afghanistan insurgent war of attrition against the United States. Bush further helped stimulate Al-Qaeda by focusing on Iraq instead of the Afghanistan borders.

Further note: The on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been an illusion. Authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that record amounts of opium coming across the border had increased. Analysts suggest the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.

7) Fatah al-Islam
Fatah al-Islam, (Arabic: Conquest of Islam) is a radical Sunni Islamist group that first formed in November 2006. It is a militant jihadist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda.

Shaker al-Abssi’s was a two-bit thug who was arrested for weapon smuggling. Several courts across the Middle-East had warrants out for his immediate arrest. He would have probably landed back in jail, but in 2003, he went to Iraq to fight against the coalition forces. Iraq became a proving ground for Shaker, and providing connections that he needed to establish a 500-strong military force.

Fatah al-Islam operates out of Lebanon, and is most known for engaging in combat against the Lebanese Army in the Nahr al-Bared UNRWA Palestinian refugee camp in the summer of 2007.

Without the Iraq war, Shaker would still be in hiding as a wanted man by most of the Middle-East.

Conclusion
Before the Iraq invasion, terror groups were isolated, unorganized, and disallowed from participating in the Middle Eastern regional politics. All that has changed because of the Iraq invasion. Now we have new global terror groups, that would never have existed without President Bush’s direct intervention. Keep in mind that this article in no way implies that Saddam ever did a good thing in his life; this simply implies that there is a delicate balance in the world, and instinct-based approaches to world affairs, such as the one Bush employed, can have very bad results.

This article has been written purely from research and verification at DHS.gov, state.gov, and wikipedia.org