Someone sent me an e-mail of a talk by Navy Captain Dan Ouimette given in Pensacola in 2003 entitled "America Needs to Wake Up" Captain Ouimette argues that America has failed to respond with sufficient retaliatory force to terrorist attacks starting in 1979 when the American Embassy in Tehran was targeted as well as the attacks which followed to the present time. He argues America has been under "constant attack" since then because of our lack of enough military response. There has been considerable support for his position on the internet and in E-mail exchanges See his talk: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/america-wake-up.htm

My views are that these are very sincere thoughts on the part of one trained in the military. He does present a compelling, even though only partial, history of terrorist events. It seems to me, however, that he offers an overly simplistic solution. To start with, these terrorist attacks are not random acts of violence. There are reasons why we have become the target of terrorists and the hate of a large part of the nonchristian world. Not only is it because of our strong support of Israel, which makes us the enemy of the enemies of Israel, but also because of our oil dependence. Our oil dependence is a reason for our military presence in Saudi Arabia following the golf war which enraged the fundamentalist Muslims. Remember that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi’s – not Iraqis or Syrians or Afghans. Our history of political, military and clandestine activities involving oil in this part of the world and elsewhere began well before 1979. For more then 50 years there has been a history of U.S. intrigue in Southwestern Asia and the middle East involving access to oil supplies which has been the cause of deep resentment and hate against our country.

A substantial cause of middle east hatred of us involves the CIA and British intelligence activities in orchestrating a coup d’etat that toppled the democratically elected government in Iran of Mohammad Mossadegh. By our disposing of Mossadegh and restoring the Shah to power, we caused very serious consequences that directly began resentment and terrorist activities against us around that part of the world. Why would similar action in Iran have had any different consequences? Our political and oil seeking actions have continued to exacerbate hate in the Muslim world against us. When this administration decided to attack Iraq in a miscalculated strategic gamble to "eliminate terrorist everywhere" it instead caused the uniting of religious fanatics against us everywhere.

Is Captain Ouimette right that had the United States instituted mini wars of retaliation starting in 1979, would we have stopped terrorist activities? Had we, for example, bombed Iran in 1979 or invaded it as we did Iraq in 2003, would that have stopped the other terrorist activity he cites? I think not. We now know that the Iraq war has aggravated the terrorist threat and that terrorist recruitment has ballooned since our invasion of Iraq. If we had started mini wars all over the world each time would that have made our situation today better? Could these problems be solved by swinging the biggest club through retaliation, violence and war? Clearly not. My objection is to this idea is that history has proven it doesn’t work. The solution is not just simply crushing those who attack us. The problem is one of religious conflict and politics intertwined in a very complex manner. We need to get past the idea that we can solve problems as complex as these through war and violence or that we can eliminate hate and terrorist activity against the Western world by simply instituting war like retaliation each time it happens somewhere in the world. A balanced response recognizing the reason for the problem and dealing with in a rational manner is what is required.