9. Nothing fosters terrorism more than the West's "war on terror". Wars of aggression are not only the most immoral, but also the least intelligent way to combat terrorism.

The Western claim, Muslims have to finally clarify their relationship towards violence, also applies to the West itself. We must unmask the West's warriors of aggression. We must show the infinite stupidity of their strategy. Terrorism in the guise of Islam is an ideology; ideologies cannot be shot down. One has to undermine its foundations, prove it wrong.

In early 2001, radical Islamism around the world was on the ropes. The dream of solving Iran's or Afghanistan's political problems by means of a process of radical Islamization had had turned into a nightmare. The Muslims had come to the bitter realization that the hard-line Mullahs had turned some of their countries into grim (religious-) police states. During the United States' blitzkrieg, the Afghan people demonstratively left the Taliban to their fate - an unusual event in the history of Afghanistan.

In light of this evident failure of radical Islamism, Al-Qaeda's attack on New York and Washington was not just an act of revenge but also an attempt to regain the high ground. Through an act of such diabolical boldness and the ensuing media spectacle, the radical Islamists wanted to win back the sympathy of the masses. They wanted to provoke the United States into overreacting, which would in turn give radical Islamism a new impetus.

The whole scenario is made all the more absurd by the fact that the hawks of the US government had been keenly awaiting just such an opportunity. Al-Qaida wanted to provoke, and the Bush administration was just waiting to be provoked.

Al-Qaida's strategy worked perfectly. The countless bombs that rained down on the heads of Afghan civilians, who were already tired of the Taliban, revived prostrate radical Islamism and helped it back on its feet. The Afghans certainly wanted to get rid of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda - both groups that had been created by the secret services of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - but they did not see why thousands of Afghan civilians had to be bombed to death to achieve that goal.

None of the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center were from Afghanistan or Iraq. They came from Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Emirates, Lebanon and Egypt. In order to neutralize their Saudi Arabian ideological leader Osama Bin Laden at his retreat in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, more intelligent methods could have been adopted than bombing Kabul.

So the radical Islamists once again had reason to issue a worldwide call-to-arms against the foreign invaders and against their own authoritarian pro-Western governments - just as they had done in 1979 when the Soviets marched in.

The election victories of Hamas, the rise of radical Islamism in the once secular Iraq, and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan have a lot to do with the brutality and stupidity of the wars on terror.

Radical forces in the West and in the Muslim world have spurred each other on. Bin Laden and Ahmadinejad provided George W. Bush with his best catchwords, and vice versa. We must break through this fatal reciprocity as swiftly as possible.

The West does not have the right to take military action all over the world against radical Islamist movements – or against leftwing radical or rightwing radical organizations. It does not have the right to turn the world into a bloody and chaotic battlefield in order to impose its vision of the world. Western combat troops have no business fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran.

The Muslim countries must solve their problems with radical Islamism primarily by themselves. Even where radical Islamism degenerates into terrorism, it is first and foremost the task of national forces to combat it. Only in extreme and exceptional cases and with the backing of the United Nations Security Council should international police task forces provide reinforcement.

The damage foreign military interventions cause is almost always greater than the benefit, even when the motives are honest and humanitarian. It is not enough to want to do good, one has to actually do good.

The war on terrorism will not be won by military means - neither in the Hindu Kush nor in Baghdad. It will be won in the hearts and minds of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims, who live in the East and the West, the North and the South, and who are observing the politics of the West very closely.

With every Muslim child killed by a Western bomb, terrorism grows. With each day that passes, we are sinking deeper into the morass of our own policies.

It is above all aerial warfare that has failed miserably as a means of fighting terrorism. Despite continuous aerial bombardment Bin Laden managed to escape from Tora Bora, because there were more journalists than American soldiers surrounding the cave complex where he was believed to be hiding. At about the same time, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar succeeded in breaking through the thin ranks of the U.S. forces on a motorbike.

Tora Bora is a grotesque symbol of the folly of the anti-terror crusade. Not even Cervantes, the creator of Don Quixote, could have dreamed up a more bizarre slapstick finale.

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