Kenyan Mall Attacks

Nobody can deny the horror of the attack that occurred on September 21 at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Such incidents have unfortunately become common place in this tumultuous, religiously torn part of the world. The number of religiously based terror attacks that have occurred in Kenya over the past ten years is absurd, most of them perpetrated by al-Qaeda and al-Shabab. Many of the other incidents are similar to the mall attack; ruthless massacres in which there are many unarmed civilians of all ages. As noted by many survivors of the mall attack, it seems as though these attackers are being brainwashed from a very young age in order to carry out these killings. Now the biggest question is whether or not the United States needs to intervene in order to stop such horror, and the simple answer is no. The reality is that there is no way for the United States to intervene that would cause less damage. In the eyes of the extremists who committed these atrocities, the U.S. is perhaps the greatest enemy of all. If we sent troops or CIA operatives, they would only serve as a knew target. This would potentially endanger even more civilians. Frankly, the CIA doesn't have a very good reputation when it comes to taking down extremist factions either, and it is not particularly difficult to imagine a CIA sponsored coup ending in a civil war or a similar tragedy. The best thing the U.S. could do is to stay out. Even sponsoring a government from afar would do more harm then good, because anybody receiving U.S. aid would immediately become a new target. So, although it is very difficult to sit by and allow such tragedy to transpire, the United State's hands are tied.