Letter: Invasion helped terrorists

For Osama bin Laden, the Iraq invasion was a gift from Allah. Recruiting suicide bombers has never been easier.

The stories of United States atrocities are an added bonus. If some people in our government believe our Marines are guilty, you know that most people in the Middle East believe it. They’re lining up by the thousands to get their chance to kill Americans.

The last thing bin Laden wants is for the Americans to leave Iraq. If they wanted us to leave, they would just stop the bombing and wait a year. Bin Laden wants us there. That’s why he supported President Bush’s re-election, and that’s why the bombing continues.

Iraq has become the biggest terrorist training camp on the planet. They get to practice on heavily armed American soldiers and civilian targets that are being protected by them. If you train your young bombers against American armor, imagine how good they’ll be against civilian targets. If they can blow up a mosque with an armored patrol of U.S. Marines out in the street, imagine what they’ll be able to do to a stadium with a few cops in the street.

The people who make the munitions are also honing their skills. Charges with sophisticated shapes are destroying tanks that were impervious to Iraqi anti-tank artillery during the invasion. A bomb that destroys tanks would be devastating on the streets of a Western city. Bin Laden will not allow the training to stop. The violence will continue as long as we’re there.

William R. Foster/Naples